ABC/Paula LoboFor 30 years, Pollstar has been tracking tours and ticket sales — but the publication’s never seen anything like Ed Sheeran.
The singer’s Divide tour grossed just over $432.4 million dollars in a calendar year, with sales of just over 4,860,000 tickets. That’s the highest tour gross and most tickets sold in any year in Pollstar history.
Ed’s tour isn’t the highest grossing tour in history, mind you — that would be U2′s 360 tour, which took in $736 million and 7.36 million tickets. But U2’s tour took over two years to reach that amount, 2009 through its 2011 end.
Not only is Ed’s tour impressive for the money it earned, but it’s even more impressive that his top ticket price was about $89. The average ticket price for 2018 for a top 10 tour was over $126. Not only that, but Ed also didn’t sell any VIP tickets for the tour, which other artists make big bucks on.
Stuart Camp, Ed’s manager, tells Pollstar, “Our adage has always been to be as democratic and fair as possible. We do meet and greets, but they’re for disadvantaged kids or contest winners; we don’t sell them, and similarly with VIP ticketing… Some kid who’s there and hasn’t got a job should have the same chances and the same access as anyone else.”
The Divide tour resumes in February and wraps up in August. By the end of 2019, Ed may have broken U2’s record.
Explaining Ed’s success, his booking agent tells Pollstar, “He has a work ethic like I’ve never seen. And he’s crossed the divide of great songs that are infectious and resonate. I cannot tell you how many emails I get about, ‘Can Ed play “Perfect” at my wedding?” I get 10 of those a day.”
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