Ed Sheeran Stuns Fans With Surprise 2025 World Tour Announcement & New Album Drop

Ed Sheeran has officially ignited the 2025-26 news cycle with two blockbuster announcements: the surprise release of his eighth studio album, “PLAY,” on 12 September 2025, and the expansion of his worldwide LOOP Tour into North America and Europe for 2026 stadium dates. PLAY marks Sheeran’s “creative rebirth,” blending Persian-inspired strings on the chart-climbing single “Azizam” with loop-station beatboxing that recalls his early club gigs. Within 48 hours, the record racked up 110 million global streams and debuted at No. 1 on Spotify’s Top Albums UK chart, while “Azizam” cracked the Billboard Hot 100 Top 30 and became the most-Shazamed song in 17 countries, signaling a streaming juggernaut in the making. To match the album’s energy, Sheeran is scaling up his already record-breaking live setup. The newly announced LOOP Tour leg adds 18 U.S. stadium shows from March through August 2026, including first-ever headline plays at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, San Francisco’s Levi’s® Stadium, and Indianapolis’s Lucas Oil Stadium. Fan-club presale goes live 25 September at 10 a.m. local time, followed by general onsale two days later; early demand has already crashed multiple ticket portals, so fans are advised to register for verified presale codes now to avoid resale markups. Sheeran will perform entirely solo, using his trademark loop pedals to layer vocals, guitar, piano, and percussion in real time, enhanced by a 360-degree cylindrical stage that rotates every three songs. Production insiders teased a laser-mapped “living album cover” that evolves with the setlist, meaning no two shows will look the same. Beyond the stadiums, PLAY is set for an October deluxe vinyl drop featuring four unreleased acoustic tracks, plus an Apple Music Spatial Audio edition. Collectors can also hunt down limited-run neon-green cassettes—each signed during Sheeran’s recent pop-up in Ipswich, where 2,000 copies sold out in under 12 minutes. Industry analysts predict PLAY could surpass the first-week sales of “÷,” positioning Sheeran to reclaim the title of 2025’s top-grossing solo artist. With streaming stats surging, ticket queues forming, and radio adds accelerating, Ed Sheeran’s new era is poised to dominate playlists, airwaves, and stadium stages well into 2026.