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Ed Sheeran has announced a European leg of his Mathematics Tour in 2025 and will kick off concerts after first helping young musician’s in UK Schools.
The singer, 33, will travel throughout Europe from May next year with shows in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Belgium, Poland, Sweden, and Denmark.
Ed’s +–=÷× Tour – also known as the Mathematics Tour, which started in 2022, has already taken in Australia, New Zealand as well as sell-out shows in the UK, earning a mega £400,000 a day.
However before returning to the stage the hitmaker will be spending several months helping to improve funding for lessons for youngsters after previously donating a whopping £1M to his former high school in Suffolk.
Ed said of the scheme: ‘I started doing that in the county I’m from, and we’ve just now changed to doing it nationwide’.
‘I’m now visiting more high schools that really need music funding and you can see what a difference it makes.’
He said he was keen to help the next generation following his own experiences at school admitting: ‘I’m not an academic person – in the real world I would be viewed as stupid’.
‘But I excelled at music and therefore people think I’m good at something, I found it massively helpful to be at a state-funded school that really encouraged that.
Before adding: ‘They’ve basically cut funding for that in England so I’m doing what I can to get funding for it. The new government will be better at it, I think.’
Earlier this year, a report from Ed’s charity, The Framlingham Foundation, revealed he’d had donated £1 million to the art department at his old school.
The grant aims to provide students with new learning resources, as well as a ‘new Expressive Arts course in Year 8 introduced this year’ and follows a similar sum donated by the ‘Bad Habits’ singer to the school’s music offering in 2022.
Nikki Scholl, head of art at the school, told the Daily Star: ‘At a time when music and the arts are recognised as being so vital in pupils’ wellbeing… this school is very well placed to support pupils’ artistic development and wellbeing. Thank you.’
Ed has also previously offered financial assistance for photography and computer studies at his old school, as well as giving music equipment to a primary school and funding bursaries for families who cannot afford fees.
The musician previously donated a similar figure to the school in 2022 to help students improve their music skills as well as helping providing music equipment including new violins and violas for pupils.
Ed’s charity provides full bursaries to families who cannot afford school fee, with its latest reports showing it spent £91,000 on donations in 2022, and had a further £338,000 in funds.
Ed has a ‘strict stance’ against using unofficial ticketing sites and he is determined to stop fans being ‘exploited’ ahead of his new shows.
His tour statement read: ‘Once again, Ed and his team have a strict stance against anyone using unofficial secondary ticketing sites to try and stop fans being exploited when trying to buy tickets for his shows’.
‘The shows on this tour will use specially developed mobile digital ticketing technology with safeguards to ensure genuine fans are buying genuine tickets, and to stop unofficial secondary ticketing sites and unofficial ticket sellers from being able to resell tickets at inflated prices and rip off fans’.
It continued: ‘Fans with tickets who become unable to go to the shows will be able to sell their tickets to other fans at the price they paid + a booking fee through the official fan-to-fan face value resale platform at the place they purchased the tickets’.
‘The promoters urge all customers to only use the official ticket sites listed at Edsheeran.com and remind them that Viagogo is not an official ticket vendor for this tour’.
‘As with previous Ed Sheeran tours, the promoters will be monitoring the sales transactions in conjunction with the National Trading Standards Cyber Crime team to identify purchases that are in contravention of the terms and conditions for the sale of Ed Sheeran tickets’.
‘All ticket purchases that contravene these terms and conditions will be subject to possible cancellation.’
Tickets go on sale at www.edsheeran.com from at 9am Wednesday 10 July.