The Audio Systems Engineer Running Sound for Ed Sheeran's Stadium Tours

Adam Wells was offered the job of a lifetime and said no. Twice. Ed Sheeran’s team needed a new audio systems engineer, the person responsible for every speaker, angle, and array on one of the most complex stadium shows in the world, and Adam turned it down before finally saying yes and stepping into the role for the first time in front of a quarter of a million people at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

The Welsh Warehouse Where It Started

Adam grew up in South Wales and got his start at a production company called Sonalyst, working under Rory Madden, who spent more than 30 years as Tina Turner’s monitor engineer. The department also crossed paths with engineers connected to Dire Straits, Eric Clapton, The Who, and AC/DC, all passing through the same small corner of the UK.

“I was surrounded. I didn’t know at the time when I started, but I was by some of the best engineers in the world.”

It was years of unglamorous work first: maintenance, prep, and the parts of the job nobody wants. Adam calls it invaluable, and says it’s the part young engineers try to skip now.

Losing Everything on Day One

Adam eventually quit his stable job to go freelance and had his first tour lined up, a theater production. Between signing on and starting prep, the audio vendor pulled out of the tour entirely.

“My first gig is gone.”

What followed was close to two years of cold-calling every audio vendor in the UK, picking up small gigs, driving across the country, and rebuilding a career from nothing. He estimates he worked for nearly every audio vendor in the country during that stretch, one small tour at a time.

No Backing Tracks. No Click Track. Nowhere to Hide.

Ed Sheeran’s show runs without a click track or a backing track, a rarity at stadium scale. Most artists performing at that level lean on tracks to fill out the sound. Sheeran doesn’t.

“There’s nothing to hide behind.”

That choice puts more pressure on every person in the audio chain, including the engineer syncing the timing of a looped guitar part live, every night, in front of tens of thousands of people. If the timing is off, Sheeran will stop the song mid-verse rather than push through it.

Reading a Stadium Before It’s Built

Part of the job happens before the crew ever loads in. Adam uses 3D modeling software to predict how a room will sound before the PA goes up, factoring in humidity, temperature, and even elevation, all of which change how fast sound actually travels.

“If you get that right, so much of your work is done ahead of time.”

Stadiums, he says, are some of the worst acoustic spaces to work with. Glass-covered, roofed venues are the hardest; open-air stadiums like Nashville’s Nissan Stadium are closer to a best-case scenario, though most new stadiums are moving away from that style. In-the-round shows compound the difficulty further, since the sound has to cover 360 degrees with no single direction to push toward.

Saying No, Then Saying Yes

When the system engineer job opened up, Adam turned it down. Twice. He didn’t think he had the specific stadium-level technical experience the role demanded.

“I was like, if this goes wrong, it’s your fault.”

After the production manager pushed the offer a third time, he said yes, on the condition that anyone above him owned the risk with him.

The First Show at a Quarter Million People

Adam’s first major run in the role came in Melbourne, where the show played to roughly a quarter of a million people over the run. He calls it the best decision of his career, made from a place of genuine fear.

“It was absolutely a free fall.”

The Kingdom That Had Never Seen a Barrier

Not every stop on the tour looks like a stadium. Adam counts a show in Bhutan among his favorites, an invitation from the country’s King and Queen that turned a building site into a venue in 24 hours, complete with hand-painted murals covering the walls.

“They’ve never seen anything like it. There was less pressure but also greater appreciation because the crowd had never seen anything like this before.”

He describes the audience as some of the most polite, genuinely thrilled people he’s ever performed for..

What the Job Actually Is

Adam is candid about what the role rewards. It isn’t creativity or polish. It’s fixing problems before an audience ever notices them.

“We’re paid the money we’re paid to find ways and fix things when they go wrong.”

His personal barometer for a good show has nothing to do with the mix itself: if people are singing the words and dancing, the audio did its job.

Nine Years, Same Crew

Despite the scale the production has grown to, Adam says the core group around Sheeran has barely changed. Several people on the road with him now have been there since the beginning, including some of the artist’s oldest friends.

Nine years in, Adam is still on the road with Ed Sheeran, still walking the upper decks of stadiums mid-show to check coverage, and still calling South Wales the foundation for all of it. His advice to anyone else on a grueling touring schedule is simple: find something outside the work that keeps you sane, and slow down, even when the pressure says to rush.

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