Ed Sheeran is back in Detroit, and this time he's building every song from scratch in front of 65,000 people. The British singer-songwriter brings his Loop Tour to Ford Field tomorrow, layering guitar, vocals, percussion and harmonies live using his signature loop pedal system rather than touring with a backing band.
Doors, Openers and a Packed Timeline
According to The Detroit News, doors at Ford Field open at 4:30 p.m., with three opening acts expected to take the stage before Sheeran. BIIRD, an 11-piece Irish traditional music collective, will likely go on around 5:30 p.m., followed by British singer Myles Smith at roughly 6:45 p.m. and Danish pop duo Lukas Graham around 6 p.m., per recent set times cited by the paper. Sheeran himself has recently begun his own sets around 8 p.m. and performed until about 10:40 p.m. on this tour, according to setlist.fm, running through roughly 28 songs per show.
BIIRD's inclusion on the bill has a notably grassroots origin story: the all-female collective, formed in 2024 by seven-time All-Ireland harp champion Lisa Canny, joined the Loop Tour after an impromptu pub jam session with Sheeran in Ireland, according to Wikipedia. The group blends traditional Irish instruments with modern styling and made its live debut in London's Trafalgar Square. Myles Smith arrives on the bill riding the momentum of his 2024 breakthrough single Stargazing, which racked up hundreds of millions of streams and cracked the UK Singles Chart's top 10 before he launched his own 2026 North American headline tour, per Wikipedia. Lukas Graham, fronted by vocalist Lukas Forchhammer, is best known for the 2015 global hit 7 Years, which topped charts in more than 10 countries and earned three Grammy nominations; the band previously shared a stage with Sheeran in Copenhagen before joining this Loop Tour leg.
The Tour Behind the Show
The Loop Tour supports Sheeran's 2025 album Play, released September 12, 2025, which kicked off a new pentalogy of albums themed around media-control symbols — Play, Pause, Fast Forward, Rewind and Stop — following the conclusion of his five-album Mathematics symbol series, according to Wikipedia. His North American run began June 13, 2026, in Glendale, Arizona, and per The Detroit News, the tour is slated to head to South America before eventually wrapping its North American run in Tampa Bay, Florida, with the broader Loop Tour continuing through Nov. 7, 2026.
The tour's technical setup is what gives it its name: Sheeran performs on a central main stage and a secondary B-stage, using a custom loop pedal rig to construct multi-instrumental backing tracks live rather than relying on a full band, according to SeatGeek. According to Wikipedia, It's a striking contrast to his previous outing — the +−=÷× (Mathematics) Tour, which ran from April 2022 to September 2025 and became the fourth-highest-grossing tour in history, pulling in $875.7 million and selling 8.8 million tickets across 188 stadium shows worldwide.
A Return to Ford Field's Big Stage
Sheeran's history with Ford Field runs deep. The Detroit News notes he opened for Taylor Swift at the venue back in May 2013, then returned to headline it himself in September 2018 and again in June 2023 — the latter show notable for a surprise appearance by Eminem as a special guest. His tour repertoire has leaned on hits including Shape of You, Photograph and Shirtsleeves, alongside Perfect, which spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 and features a Beyoncé collaboration. Shape of You, meanwhile, spent 12 weeks atop the Hot 100 and has logged more than 5 billion streams, making it Sheeran's most popular song on Spotify.
Ford Field itself opened on Aug. 24, 2002, at a construction cost of $500 million, incorporating a historic 1920s Hudson's department store warehouse into its asymmetrical design, according to Wikipedia. The stadium, owned by the Detroit/Wayne County Stadium Authority and operated by the Detroit Lions, holds a regular capacity of roughly 65,000 for football and major concerts — though its all-time attendance record stands at 80,103, set during WWE's WrestleMania 23 on April 1, 2007, per ThrillZing. The dome's enclosed steel superstructure also makes it one of the loudest indoor venues in North America; it hit an all-time indoor noise level of 134.3 decibels during a Detroit Lions playoff game in January 2024, according to 100.7 WITL.
Tickets, Parking and Getting There
Ford Field concert tickets are running $117 to $257 via Ticketmaster, with lower bowl, upper bowl and floor seating all available, per The Detroit News. Parking near the venue isn't cheap: spots within a half mile of Ford Field are going for $30 to $45, while the closest available lots are charging $95 to $150, according to ParkWhiz — and several lots are already sold out. Complicating matters further, Saturday's concert coincides with a Detroit Tigers day game at Comerica Park starting at 1:10 p.m., adding extra congestion to downtown Detroit that afternoon.
Fans looking to skip the parking scramble have free options. The Detroit People Mover, with a stop at Broadway Station, and the QLINE streetcar, stopping at Grand Circus Park, both operate as zero-fare public transit connecting downtown Detroit to the stadium district, according to the RTA of Southeast Michigan. Ford Field also enforces a clear bag policy: fans may bring one-gallon clear plastic freezer bags or clear plastic, vinyl or PVC bags no larger than 12 by 6 by 12 inches, along with small clutch bags no bigger than 4.5 by 6.5 inches — but backpacks are prohibited entirely.
Elsewhere in Detroit's Music Scene This Weekend
Sheeran's Ford Field show lands amid a busy stretch for Detroit's live music calendar. Isaiah Rashad is set to perform at the Fillmore Detroit, and Big Time Boxing is being held at the Fox Theatre, per The Detroit News. In a smaller, more personal Sheeran moment tied to the weekend, 33-year-old Detroiter Kevin Reddy sang with Sheeran during a duet of Thinking Out Loud at Sakazuki, a venue located in Detroit's Book Tower.
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