Following Ed Sheeran’s attempt to “both-sides” Israel’s livestreamed genocide in Gaza that has killed at least 80,000 Palestinians – and the subsequent departure of every support artist on the remainder of his tour – the price of unsold tickets for his concert tonight in Philadelphia has halved, and re-sale numbers have increased by 2.5x, according to Forbes.
Meanwhile, Macklemore’s daily streams almost doubled, Billboard reports. These statistics alone illustrate what tens of millions of people have noticed this week: a dramatic and irreversible cultural shift has taken place, in favour of those who have bravely spoken out and acted in solidarity with Palestine and upheld the fundamental right to freedom of expression, and against all those who have sought to silence and censor them – including anti-Palestinian, far-right Zionist oligarchs like Adelson and Ellison, and Kraft, who is named in the Epstein files.
We now extend our call for boycotting Ed Sheeran’s entire world tour, including the upcoming Latin American dates, and the as-yet-unannounced European leg. We urge all artists, fans, and where possible crew members to boycott the tour, as a meaningful way to resist complicity in whitewashing genocide, apartheid and oligarch-backed silencing, and to stand up for artistic integrity in the face of naked coercion and bullying.
Palestinians salute Macklemore for his moral courage and unwavering solidarity. We also salute the artists Beoga, Aaron Rowe and Lukas Graham for heeding our movement’s calls to boycott Ed Sheeran’s US tour – as well as Finneas, who has withdrawn as opening artist for Sheeran’s Latin American tour in November and December. We also commend BIIRD, Ellie Banke, Amble and Myles Smith, artists who had already completed their run on Sheeran’s US tour, and still distanced themselves from it in solidarity with Palestine.
We reiterate our call for pressure on Ed Sheeran to speak out about Israel’s genocide and finally stand up to the depraved oligarchs who have for many years played a major role in enabling Israel’s war crimes and grave violations of international law against Indigenous Palestinians. If not, he should cancel the complicit tour, compensating workers and artists as needed.
We are inspired by the unprecedented outpouring of support from almost every region on Earth, and we thank every BDS activist and every supporter who has laid the ground for this powerful moment. This particularly includes the tens of thousands of musicians, writers, visual artists, actors and directors – including hundreds of leading Hollywood stars – and the more than 2,000 arts organisations, who have endorsed boycotting Israel and its complicit cultural sector.
Meaningful solidarity, especially through BDS, is what Palestinians are calling for, and that begins with ending complicity in Israel’s atrocities against us. This is an ethical duty, not an act of charity. Together, we are relentlessly and persistently building the people power we need to affect policy change in the mainstream, especially to compel states to impose military, energy, trade, diplomatic, and other embargoes on apartheid Israel, as was once done against apartheid South Africa.
As Aaron Rowe said, “as Irish people we know all too well about genocide, forced famine and violent occupation. I cannot stand by and allow billionaires to use their position of power to silence the rightful voices of those who speak up against Israeli genocide and who highlight the savage murder of children.”
Saoirse Don Phalaistín – Freedom for Palestine!
Update, Saturday 3rd October 2026
US country music star Zach Bryan and his band wore “Free Palestine” shirts at their concert at Robert Kraft’s Gillette stadium last night, defying the oligarch’s censorship of Macklemore. PACBI welcomes such acts of solidarity.
Meanwhile, tickets for Ed Sheeran’s Atlanta stadium concert tonight have plunged to less than $20, after the singer bowed to Kraft’s demand to remove Macklemore from his US tour over the rapper’s expression of solidarity with Palestine during a concert.
In an inspiring response, every single scheduled support artist withdrew from Sheeran’s world tour, following Palestinian-led calls to boycott the complicit and compromised tour.
Sheeran later reacted with a speech that sounded like it was written by Kraft’s propagandists, both-sidesing Israel’s livestreamed genocide against Indigenous Palestinians in Gaza and failing to make amends to Macklemore and the other artists.
Standing up to pro-censorship billionaire bullies, several of them linked to Epstein, is a minimal ethical requirement that Sheeran has so far failed to meet.
Ironically, it was bad weather – not solidarity or moral responsibility from Sheeran – that caused the cancellation of Sheeran’s subsequent two shows at Kraft’s Gillette stadium.
Palestinians reiterate our call for the boycott of Ed Sheeran’s tarnished world tour.
We call on all support artists, audiences and where possible crew members to boycott the tour, as a meaningful way to resist complicity in whitewashing Israel’s genocide and apartheid, to reject oligarch-backed suppression of freedom of expression, and to stand up for artistic integrity in the face of naked coercion and bullying.
Zach Bryan is due to perform again tonight at Kraft’s stadium. Will a panicky Kraft desperately follow his established playbook, and attempt to silence solidarity with Palestine?
It seems that the chilling effect that Israel-First oligarchs had hoped to achieve by bullying Macklemore and trying to harm his career has failed.
Even A-list artists who have stayed silent until now will feel the pressure to speak out.