Ed Sheeran’s touring team have detailed the multi-million dollar investment that brought the hitmaker’s four-year Mathematics tour to life.
The globe-trotting run will have sold over eight million tickets across more than 140 headline shows in 42 countries when it finishes in September at Düsseldorf’s Merkur Spiel-Arena.
Planned in the midst of the global shutdown, Sheeran and his manager Stuart Camp put up $25 million to facilitate the bespoke in-the-round show.
“It needed to be absolutely iconic,” says production director Chris Marsh, who has worked with Sheeran since 2010. “He wanted it to be something that looks and feels like something nobody else has ever done before.”
Speaking in the new edition of IQ Magazine, Camp explains the line of thinking was: “If it’s the last show we do, and we only do one, at least they’ll say it was fabulous.”
Creative designer Mark Cunniffe, who had dreamed of an in-the-round show – which allowed for more ticket sales – ever since Sheeran’s first stadium performance at London’s Wembley Stadium in 2015, was tasked with fleshing out the vision.
“I wanted an unencumbered view of the artist for 360 degrees, which physically hadn’t been done before,” he says. “I knew it was possible with cable net, but I didn’t know if we could actually tour it. Once we’d done all of our due diligence, we took it to the artist. I said, ‘It’s going to be expensive, but we can do it. We can do this.’ And [he] loved it.”
“Mathematics was impossible on paper at its conception and went on to be the most spectacular production”
Sheeran’s longtime international agent, One Fiinix Live founder and CEO Jon Ollier, adds: “Ed wanted to take the biggest, most spectacular show he could out on the road. He just wanted to give back to the fans. He was looking at millions and millions of pounds worth of investment to get this thing built, all while in the pandemic, when we never knew if we were going to get to tour it.
“Ed’s performance ability has always been incredible, but he has just excelled from having to use that stage. It is so big, there’s nowhere to hide, and you have to constantly be moving. The energy comes at you from 360 degrees.”
The Mathematics tour, which began in Dublin in March 2022, has also seen the 34-year-old Brit play across Europe, Oceania, Asia, the Middle East and South America.
“Mathematics was impossible on paper at its conception and went on to be the most spectacular production that’s been on the road for the last five years,” says Ollier. “A huge amount of credit has to go to the people behind it. It just wouldn’t be possible with any other team.”
“When you have an artist who works as hard as him, it’s really easy to get everyone else to work as hard as him”
Sheeran, who hit the headlines in Norway last month after his concerts at Ullevaal Stadium in Oslo reportedly caused a mini “earthquake”, has already announced details of his brand new Loop Tour. The run launches in Australia and New Zealand next year in support of his forthcoming album Play.
“He is the hardest working person I have ever been around,” says Marty Diamond, his US/Canada co-agent and EVP/managing executive of Wasserman Music. “He is completely non-stop. And that’s hard to do, not just as a performer but as a creator and a humanitarian, too. When you have an artist who works as hard as him, it’s really easy to get everyone else to work as hard as him. He’s just an unstoppable force.
“You don’t achieve the success that he has achieved without hard work, passion for what you do, and respect and appreciation for the people who do the work with you and for you. There’s a lot of love around him. I feel honoured that I get to work for him.”
