Ed Sheeran at Ford Field: Eminem Didn't Appear — Here's the Full Setlist

No. Ed Sheeran played Ford Field on Saturday, August 29, 2026, ran 28 songs across two stages for close to three hours, and Eminem never walked out. "Lose Yourself" was not played. "Stan" was not played. The guests who did appear were the Irish trad band Beoga, who joined Sheeran for a six-song run in the middle of the main-stage set.

Detroit had reason to wonder. The last time Sheeran played this building, Eminem emerged from the wings mid-song and turned a stadium show into one of the most replayed concert moments of the decade. That was always the ceiling on expectations for this date, and it is worth being straight about why it did not clear it.

What actually happened on the night

Sheeran took the stage at 8:00 p.m. and played until roughly 10:50 p.m., after opening sets from BIIRD, Lukas Graham and Myles Smith that started at 5:30. The staging moved him between a main stage and a B-stage in the round, with the loop pedal doing the heavy lifting it always does.

The set opened with "You Need Me, I Don't Need You" from the B-stage before the bridge across to the main stage for "Shivers," "Castle on the Hill," "The A Team" and "Sapphire." A four-song fan-request block followed on the B-stage — "Tenerife Sea," "Wake Me Up" (taken from a sign in the front row), "Sing," and "Give Me Love" with the crowd handling the harmonies.

Beoga came out for the stretch that gave the night its character: "Galway Girl," "Nancy Mulligan" — which ran into an improvised Irish jig — "I Don't Care," "Old Phone," "Camera" and "Celestial." Then "Photograph," a five-song medley stitching "Eastside," "2002," "Cold Water," "Little Things" and "Love Yourself," and the run of "Thinking Out Loud," "Perfect" and "I See Fire."

Back on the main stage for "I'm a Mess," "Bloodstream" and "Afterglow," Sheeran closed with a three-song encore: "Shape of You," "Azizam" and "Bad Habits."

The full setlist

Twenty-eight songs, and not one of them Eminem's. For a crowd that had spent two months trading rumours, the absence was the story.

Why a repeat was always unlikely

The 2023 cameo worked because nobody saw it coming. A surprise announced in advance is not a surprise, and a surprise repeated at the same venue is a rerun — the second time cannot land the way the first did, which is a reason to do it somewhere else rather than a reason to do it again. Eminem is also famously selective about live appearances; the gaps between them are the point.

None of which was knowable in advance, and this site said so before the show: there was no announcement, no teaser, and no reason to expect one. That remained true right up to the encore.

The 2023 surprise that shook Ford Field

On July 15, 2023, during his +–=÷× (Mathematics) Tour, Sheeran was deep into his set in front of a crowd of more than 65,000 when he floated the idea of covering "one of his songs" — Detroit knowing exactly whose. He launched into "Lose Yourself" solo, and midway through the first verse Eminem emerged onstage in a dark hoodie and baseball cap to a roar you could feel in your chest, picking the words up where Sheeran left them.

What sold the moment was Sheeran refusing to let it end at one song. "He was gonna come out and do one song," he told the crowd, "but I said you can't come out in Detroit and just do one song." The two then ran through "Stan," with Sheeran handling Dido's chorus — a full-circle nod to the pair's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame history. Eminem kept it short and warm: "Detroit, I missed you," before signing off, "Thank you, Ed. I appreciate you, Detroit. I love you. Peace!" Sheeran closed the run with "Perfect." It remains one of the most-replayed Detroit concert moments of the decade.

Their real collaboration history

The chemistry on that stage was not a one-off stunt. Eminem and Sheeran have a genuine, documented studio partnership that stretches across three tracks — and it is worth getting the details right, including one credit that even fan write-ups routinely botch.

It started with "River" (2017), which is an Eminem song featuring Ed Sheeran, from Eminem's album Revival — not an Ed Sheeran ÷ track, as it is so often miscredited. Sheeran wrote and sang the aching hook over Eminem's record, and the song has since crossed 900 million-plus Spotify streams, making it comfortably the pair's biggest.

Two years later they flipped the billing on "Remember the Name" (2019) — Ed Sheeran featuring Eminem & 50 Cent, from Sheeran's No.6 Collaborations Project. Built on a Dr. Dre-inspired bounce, it paired Sheeran's melody with a full-circle Shady Records reunion, dragging Detroit and Queens into the same booth.

The most recent studio link is "Those Kinda Nights" (2020), Eminem featuring Ed Sheeran, from Music to Be Murdered By. This time Sheeran handled the hook on Eminem's turf again, a looser, night-out record that showed the collaboration was still live going into the new decade.

Beyond the records, they also performed "Stan" together at Eminem's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction on November 5, 2022, with Sheeran reprising Dido's part. Sheeran has spoken often about Eminem as a foundational influence, crediting rapping along to The Marshall Mathers LP with helping him work through a childhood stutter. So when he calls a Detroit crowd one of the loudest he has ever played to, it reads less like tour patter and more like someone playing his idol's hometown.

Where that leaves things

Sheeran has now played Ford Field twice in three years and given Detroit one unrepeatable night out of the two. The collaboration history is real and still open — three studio tracks, a Hall of Fame duet, and an artist who has never stopped naming Eminem as the reason he found his voice. What Detroit did not get on August 29 was a second lightning strike in the same spot.

For where Eminem's own year is actually heading, see what is confirmed and what is rumour for 2026.