Tag: Ed Sheeran
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800+ playlist-adds took Ed Sheeran to 69m listeners (and 46.5m first-day streams) on Spotify

Avatar photo by Stuart Dredge

Spotify is putting out some stats around the latest Ed Sheeran album. According to its announcement this morning, Sheeran has set a new record for monthly listeners on Spotify: he’s on 69.1 million at the time of writing, with the 70 million milestone in his sights.

That means nearly 32% of Spotify’s active users (based on its 217m end-of-Q1 total) are currently listening to Ed Sheeran in some form.

Another figure from the press release this morning offers some context for that with his latest album ‘No. 6 Collaborations Project’. “Music from his album landed in more than 800 official Spotify playlists, an incredible and rare feat,” explained Spotify.

Posted inSandbox

Sandbox Issue 229: Partnerships. How labels are sharing marketing

by Rocio Sanchez

Lead: Collaborations have long been a staple in the music industry, but something different is happening today as social media and analytics become key parts of marketing campaigns. In the “old days”, labels would trade collaborations and one would take the lead and that was that. But the new Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran single […]

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Sandbox Issue 215: ‘Boxing Clever. Sandbox Summit Special Issue

by Rocio Sanchez

In a break with tradition, this issue of Sandbox is a wrap up of our recent Sandbox Summit in London. Inside, we have reports from every panel, every keynote and every presentation – going into detail on what was covered in each one and all the talking points you need to be aware of. Including: […]

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Sandbox Issue 209: Storylines, Music’s next chapter with Instagram Stories

by Rocio Sanchez

Lead: There are 400m people using Instagram Stories every day and musicians are among the heaviest lifters here. Until recently, however, it was a curiously music-free set up; but new licensing deals with parent company Facebook  have seen audio being incorporated into posts. This is, in part, a move by the photo-sharing app to hold existing […]

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U2 still the top-earning musicians in Forbes Celebrity chart

Avatar photo by Stuart Dredge

Forbes has published its annual ‘Celebrity 100’ list of the highest-paid entertainers in the world, with many headlines (and inevitable internet arguments) focusing on its claim that Kylie Jenner is set to be “the youngest ever self-made billionaire”. There are a fair few musicians in the list though, including three in the top 10.

Sixth-ranked U2 are the highest-earning musicians from the last 12 months according to Forbes, with a pre-tax income of $118m. They’re joined by Coldplay (seventh place with $115m) and Ed Sheeran (ninth with $110m) in the upper reaches of the chart, although all are some way behind boxer Floyd Mayweather, who took top spot with $285m of annual earnings.

The largest-earning newcomer in the entire list, meanwhile, is plucky young musician… Roger Waters, with the Pink Floyd co-founder’s latest tour helping him to $68m of pre-tax earnings in the last 12 months.

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Pollstar mid-year Top 50 Tours chart sets new sales record

Avatar photo by Stuart Dredge

The top 50 worldwide tours in the first half of 2018 set a new record for ticket sales, according to Pollstar. Its mid-year chart shows a 12% spike in gross sales to $2.21bn. “It’s the chart’s biggest rise since 2015-16 and a change from 2017’s mid-year total gross which actually decreased by $10 million,” explained the site.

Ed Sheeran topped the rankings, with gross takings of $213.9m in the first half of 2018. This isn’t just about more bums on seats (standing also available) though. “Soaring average ticket prices contributed significantly to worldwide touring’s ascendant gross with a record high of $96.31 – a 14.1% increase and nearly $12 ($11.91) jump over 2017’s $84.40,” explained Pollstar. “This, while total tickets sold remained relatively constant from last year with a small 2.1% drop to 22.9 million from last year’s 23.4 million.”

The research also addresses the topic of empty seats at big stadium tours, noting that “strategic” ticket pricing with a greater range and more tiers “often resulted in greater revenue generated often from the more in-demand lower bowls while some of the more inexpensively priced upper seats, for which there can be less demand, were left in the hands of the secondary market or unsold”.

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Ed Sheeran manager takes aim at ‘abhorrent’ ticket touting

Avatar photo by Stuart Dredge

Credit to Ed Sheeran’s manager Stuart Camp for not mincing his words when it comes to his campaign against inflated secondary-ticketing prices.

“We do it because I think it’s abhorrent that some bastard is harvesting our tickets and selling them for £500-plus,” he told MBW. “A lot of people don’t realize it’s not [our fault]. They Google search Ed Sheeran tickets and go, ‘Why are your tickets £500?’ Well they’re f***ing not. It makes me so angry. It’s just not fair and I think it’s disgraceful.”

Camp noted a difference between some of the high-profile entities in the secondary-ticketing world though.