By Ben Turnwell, Business Development Manager, EMEA Live, Clear-Com
I’ve been fortunate to work with some incredible productions throughout my career, first as a Technical Sales Engineer at Autograph and now as Business Development Manager for EMEA Live at Clear-Com. Every now and then you get involved in a project that stays with you.
For me, Ed Sheeran’s touring production is one of those.
What started as a FreeSpeak II demonstration in Manchester during the Divide Tour became a front-row seat to how communications evolved alongside one of the world’s biggest touring productions. Looking back now, it’s fascinating to see how the comms infrastructure grew from a relatively simple wireless deployment into a highly integrated network supporting thousands of moving parts across some of the largest stadium shows in the world.
It Started With a Real-World Test
Back in 2018, I was working at Autograph as a Technical Sales Engineer when the production team started looking at ways to improve their wireless communications. At the time, Ed was out on the Divide Tour, and like many growing tours, the comms requirements were starting to outgrow the original setup.
The question was simple:
*”Can you show us what FreeSpeak II can actually do?”*
Rather than sitting in a meeting room looking at PowerPoint slides and spec sheets, we did what most touring crews prefer. We took it to a show.
We arranged a demo at Manchester and let the team use the system in a real-world environment. Because let’s be honest, that’s the only test that really matters.
Touring isn’t a controlled environment. Every venue is different, RF conditions change daily, departments are spread all over the place, and nobody has time for something that only works on paper.
The feedback was positive, and before long I found myself back out supporting the deployment at Newcastle.
The original system was relatively modest. A handful of FreeSpeak II beltpacks, a base station and a few transceivers. Nothing particularly extraordinary by today’s standards.
What it gave the crew, though, was reliable wireless communications and the flexibility to organise conversations in a way that suited how they actually worked.
That was the start of it.
The Tour Grew. The Comms Grew.
One thing I’ve learned from working on long-running productions is that communications requirements never stay the same.
Tours evolve.
Departments expand. More people need access. New workflows emerge. Production elements become more complex.
The communications system has to keep pace.
What started as a relatively straightforward wireless intercom deployment gradually evolved into something much bigger as the production continued to grow.
By the time Mathematics came along, both the show and the comms infrastructure were operating on a completely different scale.
Five Stages. Thousands of Moving Parts.
The Mathematics Tour is an engineering masterpiece.
Five stages spread across a stadium. A massive halo structure suspended above the performance area. Lighting, video, audio, automation, rigging, pyrotechnics, stage management and countless crew members all needing to work together as one team.
From the audience’s perspective, it looks effortless.
Behind the scenes, it takes an enormous amount of coordination.
And that coordination only works when people can communicate.
The comms solution eventually expanded beyond wireless intercom alone, bringing together FreeSpeak II, HelixNet and LQ interfaces over the production’s IP infrastructure.
For me, the interesting part wasn’t necessarily the hardware itself. It was what that connectivity enabled.
You had crew operating underneath stages, at FOH, around the stadium bowl and in remote technical positions, all needing instant access to the people they work with every day.
The challenge wasn’t just getting comms to people.
It was connecting the entire production together.
Why Integration Matters
As productions get larger, comms become less about individual devices and more about workflows.
How does video talk to lighting?
How does stage management reach automation?
How does a technician on one side of a stadium instantly connect with somebody working somewhere completely different?
Those questions become increasingly important as shows get bigger.
Touring crews don’t care about network architecture or technical specifications. They care about whether they can reach the right person immediately when they need to.
The best communications systems fade into the background.
Nobody talks about them because they’re simply doing their job.
Comms Are More Than Convenience
One thing I think people outside of live production sometimes overlook is that communications are often part of the safety infrastructure.
They’re not just there to make the show run smoothly.
They’re there to help crews react quickly when things don’t go according to plan.
On Mathematics, that became particularly important because of the sheer scale of the production and the number of moving elements involved.
The halo above the stage, for example, was monitored by dedicated technicians responsible for safety systems and operational oversight. Those teams needed to be able to communicate instantly with the wider production crew whenever required.
There were occasions where systems didn’t behave exactly as expected and departments had to work together to quickly resolve issues while keeping the show moving. The same was true for weather-related challenges. During the Denver show, extreme temperatures, thunderstorms and nearby lightning caused multiple evacuations before the performance could begin. Once the production was cleared to resume, communication between departments became critical to getting thousands of moving parts back into position safely and efficiently.
Those are the moments when reliability really matters.
The audience never sees it.
And ideally, they never should.
Looking Back
What strikes me most when I look back at that first Manchester demo is how much both the production and the communications infrastructure developed over the years.
We started with a relatively small wireless deployment.
Over time, it evolved into a fully integrated communications ecosystem supporting one of the world’s biggest touring productions.
What’s interesting is that while the technology has changed, the objective hasn’t.
Whether we’re talking about RF intercom, IP connectivity or newer technologies like cellular-based communications, the fundamental requirement remains exactly the same:
The crew needs to talk.
They need to hear each other clearly.
They need to reach the right department instantly.
And they need complete confidence that the system will work every time they press the talk button.
Years Later...
After my time at Autograph, I spent several years working across the touring and live production industry before joining Clear-Com. Today, I work with production teams across EMEA, helping them solve communications challenges and build systems that support the way crews actually work.
That makes Ed’s touring journey a particularly interesting one for me.
I was there when the first FreeSpeak II demonstration happened in Manchester.
I was there when the system first went onto the road.
I watched the communications requirements evolve as the production expanded into one of the most ambitious touring shows in the world.
Today, touring technology continues to evolve. We’re seeing increasingly integrated IP workflows, greater connectivity between departments and the emergence of solutions like cellular-based intercom that can extend communications far beyond the traditional RF footprint. Now, with the development of FreeSpeak Cell and the increasing rollout of 5G networks in stadiums and live event environments, we’re starting to remove some of the traditional limitations of RF coverage altogether. The ability to provide reliable communications far beyond the footprint of a conventional wireless intercom system opens up some really interesting opportunities for touring productions, festivals and large-scale live events
But despite all that innovation, the fundamental requirement hasn’t changed.
The crew needs to communicate.
That’s what I remember most about that first demo back in 2018.
It wasn’t really about the equipment.
It was about giving the crew a better way to work.
And it’s been incredibly rewarding to see that grow from a single demonstration in Manchester into a communications infrastructure supporting one of the most successful touring productions in the world.