Fans of Ed Sheeran are seemingly struggling to sell on tickets to his forthcoming tour amid the backlash over US rapper Macklemore being dropped from his tour as a support act.
It was announced on Monday (14 September) that “Thrift Shop” rapper Macklemore had been pulled from the last leg of Sheeran’s tour over the rapper’s “Free Palestine” comments made on stage. Sheeran said that the decision was made by the promoter, Messina Touring Group, after venues threatened to cancel shows.
However, the other artists scheduled to support Sheeran – including Finneas, Lukas Graham, and Sheeran’s own backing band, the Irish folk group Beoga – have since quit the tour over Macklemore’s axing.
Now, it seems that fans who have changed their mind about seeing Sheeran on his tour are struggling to sell on tickets, with re-sale prices sinking on various sites.
On a dedicated Facebook page in which fans sell on tickets to Sheeran’s Loop tour, commenters have complained over the difficulty in selling tickets, while a number of tickets to forthcoming shows have been posted to no response.
“I don’t wanna go anymore but it doesn’t look like anyone actually buys the tickets posted here,” one person wrote, while another commented: “I still don’t understand why there is no option to resell your tickets. Even if it is at cost.”
On the ticketing platform Ticketmaster, re-sale options are determined by the event organiser, with some events only allowing ticketholders to resell their ticket in the days before the event, in a bid to prevent scalping.
Even before the controversy surrounding Macklemore, many of the dates on Sheeran’s Loop tour had failed to sell out, with hundreds of tickets still available at some of the large stadium shows.
Ticketdata, a website that monitors changes in pricing for re-sale tickets, shows that re-sale prices for Sheeran’s forthcoming gigs have dropped dramatically, with some now below face value.
At the time of writing, ticket prices for his next date, in Philadelphia on 19 September, are said to have dropped by 29 per cent over the past week, on verified re-sale platforms such as StubHub and SeatGeek.
There remains speculation over whether the controversy could cause Sheeran to abandon the rest of his tour, with British musician Billy Bragg stating yesterday that Sheeran should cancel his remaining dates rather than let “billionaires decide what can and cannot be said at [his] gigs”.
He was referring to Robert Kraft, billionaire sports owner of the Gillette Stadium where Sheeran is due to play on 25 and 26 September, who confirmed this week that he barred Macklemore from the singer’s shows, stating the venue was committed to “providing a welcoming environment for all guests and ensuring that all events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech”.
“Sheeran seems like a nice fella and he entertains a lot of people, and he’s made a great living doing that,” Bragg told ITV News on Wednesday. “This is the sort of issue that could tarnish his career, could make him a pariah of sorts, and it’d be a shame if that happened.”
Sheeran has claimed that he is “not complicit” in the decision to drop Macklemore, sharing a statement shortly after the news broke.
“I would never let down the fans who had made plans, nor would I abandon the touring crew and the other support acts and musicians who rely on me for work and to make a living,” Sheeran said. (At the time, the other support acts had not yet dropped out of the tour.)
“I am not complicit,” he continued. “I have my personal views on this devastating conflict. Just because I choose to not speak publicly, it doesn’t mean I don’t have them, and it doesn’t mean I don’t care. Nor does it mean I don’t support causes in my own, personal way.
“I choose to use my fame and platform to be a place of safety and sanctuary, to maintain diplomacy and keep conversations open, not closed. If we only focus on shouting the loudest, nothing will ever change. There are different approaches to being an advocate for change.”
Macklemore shared his own response in which he defended his statement and re-iterated his support of Palestine.
“A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: Free Palestine,” he said.
“I said, ‘Free Palestine!’ I want those words to be loud and clear, so that people all the way in Gaza to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten about them.”
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