Leadership2 publishers3 min readPublished
Dropping Macklemore cost Ed Sheeran's tour its whole backing band the next day
Venues told Ed Sheeran's promoter they would not host a show with Macklemore on the bill, so he came off it on September 14. The day after that, the remaining support acts and Sheeran's own backing band walked.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
What happened
- Macklemore opened Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour at MetLife Stadium on September 4 and told the crowd he had joined the tour so he could say two words from a stage that size: "Free Palestine".
- Macklemore said Sheeran told him that Robert Kraft had rallied some other stadium owners and that collectively they gave Sheeran an ultimatum over keeping him on the bill.
- The day after the removal was announced, the remaining opening acts and Sheeran's backing band all pulled out of the tour in protest, according to Vox.
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Why it matters
- constraint The veto sat with parties that had no contract with the performer, so a tour's lineup holds only as long as the buildings it has already sold tickets in will tolerate it.
- cost The bill for the removal fell on people who did not make the call: the support acts and musicians who gave up their remaining dates, and the fans now chasing refunds on tickets bought to see him.
- precedent One landlord's phone call worked as a lineup veto in the middle of a run. Expect lineup approval to be an explicit, negotiated clause in the next round of stadium tour deals.
- contradiction Macklemore says Kraft rallied other owners into a collective ultimatum; Kraft's confirmed statement covers only Gillette's two dates, and the promoter refers to venues without naming any of them.
The chain of control on a stadium tour runs through the buildings. A support act contracts with the tour; the tour rents the stadium. Gillette Stadium, owned by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, put its veto in its own words: "Gillette Stadium has a longstanding commitment to providing a welcoming environment for all guests and ensuring that events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech," the statement said, according to the local outlet WHDH [10][12]. Citing material shared from the stage in New Jersey and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery, it said his participation in the September 25 and 26 concerts "would cross that line" [11].
The promoter's account makes the other option expensive. Messina Touring Group said venues on the upcoming US dates had notified it that they would not allow a concert with Macklemore on the lineup, "which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans" [7]. Gillette is two of the 59 dates Vox counts on the Loop Tour [3]. Messina and Sheeran have not said what either path costs.
By the late-September dates there was no choice left to make: a tour that cannot get into the buildings is not a tour. The decision that produced those dates came earlier. The exposure was accepted when the tour took on lineup risk that the venues would price; what remained was whether to explain the arrangement publicly. Sheeran's representatives did not respond to Business Insider's requests for comment [17].
The cost of removal arrived the next day. Vox reported that the remaining opening acts and Sheeran's backing band all pulled out in protest of the decision to boot Macklemore [15][1]. Replacing an opener is a booking problem. The backing band plays the headliner's set. Business Insider reported that Macklemore fans were asking for refunds [16].
Neither side of the argument absorbed the reaction cleanly. Pink's reshare of criticism of Macklemore sparked, in Business Insider's words, a torrent of backlash for herself, and she later wrote that he "took the mic to tell all of the Jews in the stadium that it wasn't about them. You don't get to decide that for us" [18][5]. Vox published a colleague's Slack message from the aftermath: "Even some pro-Israel folks who hate Macklemore are ripshit at Robert Kraft for Streisand-effecting this guy," it read [19].
The ticket base cuts the other way from the buildings. Vox reports that sympathy for Israel has declined sharply across American generations, with the steepest drop over the past two years among people aged 35 to 54 [20]. Macklemore is 43 [21].
The record Gillette cited was available before the tour was booked. Vox describes a documented history of apparently antisemitic behavior that Macklemore has since apologized for [22], and the stadium's statement rests on that history as well as the New Jersey remarks [11]. A tour that books an act a landlord already objects to leaves that landlord free to refuse him at any date in the run. Messina announced the removal on September 14, eleven days before the two Gillette shows that prompted it [2].
What to watch
- Whether the remaining US dates go ahead with a replacement band, and how many tickets are refunded.
- Whether Messina or any other venue names the stadiums that made the threat, which would corroborate Macklemore's account of a collective ultimatum.
- Whether Sheeran comments on the record; his representatives have not responded to press requests so far.