Wembley glory with Sam Ryder and Sennheiser Spectera

Wembley glory with Sam Ryder and Sennheiser Spectera. Image Jenny Hodge

Monitor engineer Jamie Hickey has put Sennheiser’s wideband wireless ecosystem through its paces across venues of every size for Sam Ryder’s recent tour

When British singer-songwriter Sam Ryder embarked on his Road to Wembley tour in October 2025, the journey took him from intimate gigs to the iconic Wembley Arena. For monitor engineer Jamie Hickey, the tour presented a unique opportunity to test Sennheiser’s Spectera wideband wireless ecosystem, kit recently used by Secret Cinema’s Grease.

Since his appearance on Eurovision 2022, Sam Ryder has continued his rise to fame, with his Road to Wembley tour coinciding with the release of his second album. The tour was designed as a series of intimate shows leading up to a much larger performance at OVO Arena Wembley on 6 November.

Jamie Hickey, one half of Production & Touring Ltd, brought 20 years of monitor engineering experience to his first tour with Sam Ryder. Meanwhile, his business partner Mike Taylor, serving as production manager, led the push to take Spectera out on the Road to Wembley tour.

As a long-time Sennheiser user, Hickey had been eagerly anticipating the arrival of Spectera. The technical advantages of the system were clear from the start. "The first thing you notice when using Spectera is the complete lack of background hiss; the traditional noise floor is a thing of the past," explains Hickey. "As soon as you start passing audio through the system, you can’t help but be impressed by the frequency response and stereo image."

In total, one Spectera Base Station, four DAD antennas operating on two 8 MHz TV channels and 18 SEK bodypacks were deployed for the tour. The system was complemented by a range of Sennheiser microphones.

Sam Ryder had selected venues that played a special role in his early career. Image Jack Robinson

Smaller venues often present unique challenges that often go unnoticed in purpose-built modern facilities. Testing Spectera in smaller venues provided invaluable real-world validation of the system’s capabilities. The bigger Wembley performance also showcased Spectera’s extraordinary coverage capabilities.

The response from Sam Ryder’s band and musicians was overwhelmingly positive from the first moment they experienced the system. Sennheiser’s support throughout the deployment also proved instrumental to the tour’s success, demonstrating the value of strong industry partnerships.

Find out more at sennheiser.com/en-gb