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‘It’s Become A Joke’: Coldplay Onsale Exposes Issues With India’s Ticketing Systems
Coldplay’s long-awaited return to India, three shows at Mumbai’s D Y Patil stadium, Jan 18-19 & 21, has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons, as many fans were not able to secure tickets. According to local promoting and ticketing company BookMyShow, 13 million fans tried to secure a ticket for the shows, and brought the platform to its limits.
Amit Vyas, lawyer and founding partner at Vertices Partners, was one of them. Like many, he logged into the Book My Show app on Sept. 22 for the 12 p.m. onsale. And just like everyone he spoke to since, “the moment the sale was supposed to go live, I was logged out of the application. I’ve been using the BookMyShow application for a long time, and something like this had never happened before,” he told Pollstar.
Vyas tried to log in via other devices to no avail, and then did a quick Google search of Coldplay in Mumbai, mainly to see if his internet connection was working. Vyas was immediately served with viagogo links to concert tickets, “minutes into the on-sale,” as he recalled, “and there were plenty of tickets available. It looked like they had all the tickets, for almost every row and every seat in the stadium, standing, VIP, you name it.”
The original ticket prices had ranged between INR 2,500 ($29.77) to INR 35,000 ($416.83). Those tickets were being sold on viagogo from INR 25,000 ($297.74) to more than INR 10 lakhs ($11,909,40) per ticket. “I’ve been going to concerts for more than 20 years now, and there’s a strong community of fans. We all check with each other, and no one that I know, and none of their friends, not one, got a ticket,” Vyas said, adding that it begged the question, why viagogo seemingly had the tickets before regular buyers had even managed to log into the onsale.
He decided to file a complaint at Mumbai’s Economic Offence Wing (EOW), Sept. 23, which investigates white collar times exceeding INR 10 crores ($1.2 million). When questioned by the Commissioner in charge about what made him think this was something criminal, Vyas pointed out past instances, when a primary ticket seller was found to be colluding with the resellers to participate in the higher sales.
BookMyShow had proactively filed its own complaint with the Mumbai Police, Sept. 23, 2024, “addressing these concerns much before any formal complaint was raised against us,” according to a BookMyShow spokesperson.
BookMyShow has also filed a FIR (First Information Report), Oct. 2, urging authorities “to investigate the unauthorized resale of tickets by individuals and platforms.”
UPDATE, Oct. 17, 2024, 1.55 a.m. PT: This article was updated to highlight, as previously reported, that BookMyShow had proactively filed a complaint with Mumbai Police, before any complaints were raised against the platform.
Since Vyas’ complaint BookMyShow’s leadership team has been reportedly called in for questioning.
According to the BookMyShow rep, “We have provided details of all resellers that have come to our attention, including independent individuals reselling tickets for this tour across social media platforms such as Instagram, WhatsApp and beyond, as also digital platforms such as Viagogo, Stubhub Holdings and more, to aid authorities in a thorough investigation. We remain vigilant in monitoring such instances of ticket reselling for this tour through black market channels and will continue to share all relevant information with the authorities to ensure appropriate action is taken. BookMyShow is assessing potential cancellation of such tickets that are being sold-unethically.”
Vyas suspects this FIR to have been filed with the intention to stall. When he spoke with Pollstar, he was in the middle of filing a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) at Mumbai’s high court. His goal is to kickstart a process that’ll bring the Indian ticketing landscape up to speed with the rest of the live entertainment world, where he points to several mechanisms that have been put in place to curb the unauthorized resale of tickets, from the use of blockchain to captcha to systems that matched the ID the buyer gave at the point of purchase with their ID on site at the concert.
It’s not at all unheard of, that huge onsales make the systems of even the most experienced ticket selling companies buckle. But Vyas doesn’t think this was such a case: “Coldplay is a popular band, but it’s still not comparable to when a popular cricket match goes on sale, for instance. Mumbai is a city of two crore (20 million) people, there will be hardly 1% who know about Coldplay. It’s impossible that the moment the show is announced, you log in, and there are 10 lakh (1 million) people ahead of you. One of my friends, who works in the live entertainment industry, said, these were all bots, not genuine people. Another person commented that he was number 30 in the queue, but still that queue didn’t get to zero, and he was not able to book the ticket.”
Even if he estimated the number of Coldplay fans in India too low, Vyas still wants to know how so many tickets appeared on viagogo, during a time when seemingly nobody was able to purchase tickets through BookMyShow.
“I’m doing this, because someone has to do something, otherwise nothing will change,” he said, adding, “when Bryan Adams came to India, I wanted to go, but suddenly the tickets vanished, and within five minutes, they appeared on resale sites for INR 75,000 ($893) up to INR one lakh ($1,191). It’s become a joke. My sister lives in the US. She was telling me the same thing’s happening there, that the new Springsteen tickets went on sale for $300, and are being resold for $10,000.”
There’s one more aspect that makes Vyas think foul play was involved. India has an incredibly high 28% sales tax on tickets. “Imagine that if a INR 10 lakh ticket ($11,909) is sold on the platform, the government makes INR two lakh 80,000 ($3,335). On a regular INR 2,500 ticket, it’s 700 bucks,” he explained, suggesting it could be an incentive for authorities in a country, where unauthorized ticket resale is illegal, to make an exception.
One possibility of how tickets could have appeared on secondary sites while people were being logged out of the official onsale, is spec selling – the practice for secondary sellers to put inventory they don’t even possess yet up for sale. But spec sells usually don’t have a seat and row number available at the time of purchase, which the tickets that appeared on viagogo during the Coldplay onsale did, according to Vyas.
Vyas overarching goal is to protect genuine ticket buyers. “I’m a fan myself. All I’m saying is, that in the future the systems should be set right, because otherwise these live concerts will become the privilege of just a few rich people.” And die-hard fans willing to pay anything to see their favorite artists live. Said Vyas, “Some of my friends said, ‘let us just pay’. But I said, that we’d become part of the corruption, buying tickets from a shady dealer, who may be doing 10 other illegal things.”
Vyas is considering going to see Coldplay perform in Abu Dhabi, where they’re headed after Mumbai. As it turns out, flying to Abu Dhabi, seeing the concert there, and spending a night in a hotel is cheaper that purchasing a ticket for the Mumbai shows.
A BookMyShow rep said the company’s stance hasn’t changed since the beginning, “Our stance remains clear and unchanged – BookMyShow vehemently condemns and opposes ticket reselling which is deemed illegal and is punishable by law in India. BookMyShow has no association with any such unauthorized ticket selling/reselling platforms and/or any third party individuals/platforms for the purpose of reselling Coldplay’s Music Of The Spheres World Tour 2025 in India. We are working closely with the police and regulatory authorities, to provide complete support and cooperation in the investigation of this matter in any manner that may be required right from the start. Our authorized representatives and senior management have been available whenever required by the authorities, ensuring full transparency in sharing all necessary information with the EOW (Economic Offences Wing). We would also like to clarify that Coldplay’s ‘Music Of The Spheres World Tour 2025’ in India is proceeding as planned. Reports contrary to this are factually incorrect. With 13 million (1.3 crore) fans eager to get tickets and logged in, emotions ran high on September 22, 2024. As the promoter and official ticketing platform bringing Coldplay to India, we at BookMyShow have worked hard to ensure every fan had a fair chance to secure tickets, by pricing them affordably as also capping purchase at 4 tickets per user across all shows, providing clear, step-by-step booking guides and maintaining transparent communication through all our official channels. We remain committed to ensuring a fair and genuine experience for all our consumers.”
UPDATE, Oct. 17, 2024, 1.55 a.m. PT: This article was updated to add that BookMyShow had proactively filed a complaint with Mumbai Police, before any complaints were raised against the platform.