FKP Scorpio sells 2.2m tickets for Ed Sheeran tour

FKP Scorpio has revealed it sold just shy of 2.2 million tickets for Ed Sheeran’s + – = ÷ x European tour, which wrapped up last night at Frankfurt’s Deutsche Bank Park stadium.

The company promoted 36 of the singer-songwriter’s 52 concerts in Europe this year in cooperation with the European offices of the Hamburg concert agency and partners,

A total of 2,167,034 digital tickets were sold across the 36-show run, which began at Dublin’s Croke Park on 23 April, with 560,000 of them for German stadium dates in Gelsenkirchen, Munich and Frankfurt.

“The success of the + – = ÷ x Tour is simply unprecedented”

“Superlatives are the order of the day with Ed Sheeran, but the success of this tour is and remains simply incredible,” says FKP Scorpio CEO Folkert Koopmans. “We already achieved a clear seven-figure ticket result on the previous tour with 1.4 million tickets sold but that was over a period of three years. The success of the + – = ÷ x Tour is simply unprecedented.

“Due to the size and number of concerts, this tour was of course an immense effort for all involved and I would like to very much thank our partners Kilimanjaro in UK and All Blues in Switzerland for the great cooperation – as well as the teams of our subsidiaries FKP UK, FKP Sverige, FKP Poland, FKP Belgium, Smash!Bang!Pow! in Denmark and Fullsteam in Finland. Ed Sheeran creates a unique live experience with his concerts for millions of people, with countless thrilling moments and we are all proud to be a part of it.”

Sheeran, whose agent is Jon Ollier of One Fiinix Live, recently set a new record for ticket sales in Denmark, shifting 160,000 tickets to four shows in the capital city.

“My personal goosebump moment on this tour was the duet with Taras from the Ukrainian band Antytila, with whom Ed performed his song 2step live in Warsaw’s PGE Narodowy stadium and then called the whole band onto the stage bathed in blue and yellow light,” adds Koopmans. “The solidarity of the Polish audience with these young men and their war-torn compatriots was simply overwhelming!”

To mark the last stop of the Lego House singer’s European tour, Koopmans had the stage of recreated from thousands of the popular bricks including hundreds of LEGO figures, and presented it to Sheeran as a gift. The + – = ÷ x Tour resumes for its scheduled final leg in Australia and New Zealand next February.

“Own Our Venues is an initiative I’m really passionate about getting behind”

Sheeran’s previous 255 show ÷ (Divide) run from 2017-19 surpassed U2’s 360° as the highest-grossing tour ever, with a gross of US$776.2 million. It also set a new record for total attendance, at 8,796,567.

The 31-year-old superstar has also thrown his weight behind the UK Music Venue Trust’s (MVT) Own Our Venues campaign to take control of the freeholds of grassroots music venue premises and bring them under a protected status of benevolent ownership.

“Own Our Venues is an initiative I’m really passionate about getting behind,” says Sheeran. “Small, independent venues are so, so important to the music community, and I’ve played some of my favourite gigs of my career in these rooms. We’ve got to do all we can to protect these beautiful venues that we’ve all come to love for years to come.”

MVT CEO Mark Davyd adds: “With the Own Our Venues project gathering steam, we are incredibly pleased to get Ed’s support for this initiative – he knows this sector incredibly well and understands how important it is.”

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