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Home / Entertainment

Frontier Touring's Michael Gudinski tells why Ed Sheeran is such a success

Siena Yates
By Siena Yates
NZ Herald·
28 May, 2017 08:53 AM3 mins to read

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Ed Sheeran comes out swinging for NZ in Aussie interview - 'They are better at rugby'. Channel 7 / Sunday Night
Ed Sheeran has announced a sixth and final show to his 2018 NZ tour making it the biggest to hit our shores. So how did he manage it?

Michael Gudinski says Ed Sheeran's New Zealand tour sales are "the most incredible thing I've ever seen in my life".

Gudinski heads international touring company Frontier Touring and, in more than 40 years in the industry, has worked with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Joan Jett, Foo Fighters, Bob Dylan and many, many more.

Yet he still finds Sheeran's success "absolutely mind boggling", saying it "never ceases to amaze" him.

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A post shared by Ed Sheeran (@teddysphotos)

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Gudinski has had a "very close relationship" with Sheeran since his career first kicked off. He credits the singer's success and huge popularity to his realness and dedication to music.

"He comes from the ilk of real superstars like Bruce Springsteen and Dave Grohl in the sense that he's a real fan - he's always listening to music, all different kinds of music and you can hear so many influences in his music," he said.

"I think a lot of people, including myself, really underestimated how great a singer he is and obviously he's an incredible songwriter...he's just so prolific in the sense that he most probably has 100 songs he would've thought about for this album."

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A post shared by Ed Sheeran (@teddysphotos)

Gudinski has watched Ed Sheeran grow his audience from a core demographic of young girls and older listeners, to a fanbase widespread enough to pack out six stadium shows in New Zealand alone.

The secret? He cares about and takes care of his fans; "he doesn't talk down to people he just talks with people".

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A post shared by Ed Sheeran (@teddysphotos)

Gudinski said Sheeran's "very fair" prices and the lengths the artist has gone to in order to combat scalping issues at his shows.

On Friday it was announced Sheeran was throwing his support behind a new anti-scalping ticketing site coming to New Zealand soon.

Twickets allows fans to buy and sell spare concert tickets at face value to other fans, rather than the inflated prices on sites such as Viagogo.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ed Sheeran (@teddysphotos)

"An artist that cares like this makes me want to work harder, to ensure we deliver what I want and what they want and that is that he wants his fans looked after," says Gudinski.

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"At his Sydney show it was pouring with rain and I told him, 'Ed, you can go on half an hour later don't worry about it'. And he looked at me and said, 'Look, I'll wait five minutes but if my fans are out there going through that then I'm on stage going through it,'" Gudinski recalls of Sheeran.

"He went on, the people loved it and he just got poured on. That's a typical example of Ed."

Sheeran will perform at Auckland's Mt Smart Stadium on March 24, 25 and 26, and at Dunedin's Forsyth Barr Stadium on March 29 and 31, and April 1 (Easter Sunday).

Tickets to the new Dunedin show go on sale Thursday, June 1 at 1pm. See FrontierTouring.com for details.

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