Ed Sheeran’s tour did not set out to make headlines about the Israel-Palestine conflict. But when show opener Macklemore said “free Palestine” during his set, it became one. Wherever you stand on the issue, the situation is a case study in a problem every brand and promoter can plan for before it ever reaches the stage: when someone shares your platform, but not your script. At BoardroomPR, a public relations agency and crisis management firm, we help organizations prepare for exactly this kind of risk.

The Risk Was Foreseeable

Event forums are not neutral spaces, even when they are marketed that way. Whether it is aconcert tour, product launch, or corporate conference, the moment someone puts a name and a ticket price on it, organizers inherit responsibility for everything that happens under that banner, intended or not. Macklemore has a long public record of controversy, so the risk here was foreseeable. That is actually good news for communicators: foreseeable risk is manageable risk, if you build for it early.

Fix It at Booking, Not on Stage

The proactive move is to treat the booking and briefing stage as the real point of intervention, not the aftermath. That means contracts and riders explicitly define what is and is not in bounds, pre-event conversations where both sides vocalize what they expect and won’t accept, and a documented understanding of consequences. Teams that skip this step are not avoiding the conversation; they are punting it for later, in public, and under an audience’s lens.

Draft the Response Before You Need It

It also means having a response plan drafted before you need it. 

Decide in advance: 

• What is our threshold for action? 
• Who has authority to make the call in the moment? 
• What is our target response time? 

These answers do not always guarantee a clean outcome, but they replace improvisation with intention, and audiences can usually tell the difference.

Speed Is Part of the Message

Speed matters here too. A same-week response reads differently than one that comes after days of visible silence, regardless of the reasons behind it. Build a communications timeline into your crisis plan – who drafts, who approves, who publishes, and how fast.  It turns “the clock is part of the story” from a liability into something you can control.

The Takeaway

The takeaway for communicators is not to “avoid controversial guests.” It is “build the guardrails before the show starts.” Organizations that come out of moments like this looking composed are not the ones that got lucky; they are the ones that already knew what they would do.

How a PR Agency Helps You Get There

This is the work BoardroomPR does every day. We build response playbooks before a client ever needs them. From events to businesses that face the same exposure at conferences or product launches, if you want to get ahead of your next high-visibility moment, call us today.

Jessica Shein

Account Director