Ed Sheeran breaks Taylor Swift’s 1-month-old Lumen Field crowd record

Barely a month after Taylor Swift caused seismic activity in Seattle with her Eras Tour, Ed Sheeran broke the record she set for the biggest crowd ever at Lumen Field over the weekend.

According to The Seattle Times, Sheeran’s team proclaimed that 81,000 people were in attendance during the concert Saturday night. Lumen Field posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Saturday night, that 77,286 fans were in attendance.

Another record breaking night under these arches. 77,286 breaks the all-time attendance record for Lumen Field. 🚨 pic.twitter.com/LWSc8QMvR6

— Lumen Field (@LumenField) August 27, 2023

Taylor Swift drew a crowd of 72,171, breaking the record U2 originally set in 2011. Lumen Field first opened July 28, 2002.

The Friday before his record-breaking concert, fans swarmed the Pike Place Starbucks to catch a glimpse, or even a coffee, from Sheeran as he picked up a last-minute shift to help brew some pumpkin spice lattes. The timing was perfect as Sheeran was promoting his newest album due out in 32 days — “Autumn Variations.”

More on Taylor Swift at Lumen Field: Eras Tour breaks Lumen Field attendance record

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Ed Sheeran (@teddysphotos)

“Autumn Variations” is the second album he’s released this year, following “-” (“Subtract”), which came out May 5. The U.S. leg of his current tour, the Mathematics World Tour, ends Sept. 23 at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium.

“Last autumn, I found that my friends and I were going through so many life changes. After the heat of the summer, everything either calmed, settled, fell apart, came to a head or imploded,” Sheeran said in a prepared statement out on his Instagram page.

“Autumn Variations” is a collection of 14 compositions inspired by composer Elgar’s “Enigma Variations”, and was produced by Aaron Dessner, the guitarist for the National, who has also produced projects with Taylor Swift as well as Sheeran.

More on Seattle concerts: Macklemore hosts free concert at Neumos in Seattle

“When I recorded “Subtract” with Aaron Dessner, we clicked immediately,” Sheeran continued. “We wrote and recorded non-stop and this album was born out of that partnership. I feel he has captured the feeling of autumn so wonderfully in his sonics and I hope everyone loves it as much as I do.”