‘Case Closed, No Irregularities Found’ In Coldplay’s India Onsale

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in Mumbai, India, has closed an investigation against ticketing company BookMyShow after a complaint filed by lawyer Amit Vyas, founding partner at Mumbai-based Vertices Partners.

Because countless tickets for Coldplay‘s shows in Mumbai’s D Y Patil stadium, Jan 18-19 & 21, had appeared on resale sites (and in the hands of touts operating on the streets) before genuine fans had been able to secure them during the onsale, Vyas suspected collusion between the primary seller, BookMyShow, and the secondary sellers.

No evidence for this was found, according to local news reports by the likes of Times Of India, India Today, or Tribune India.

BookMyShow had immediately filed its own complaint with Mumbai police, Sept. 23, after the onsale issues had occurred to voice its concerns about the tickets being snatched up and resold at a significant mark-up. That was before any formal complaints were launched against the company itself.

BookMyShow also filed a FIR (First Information Report), Oct. 2, urging authorities “to investigate the unauthorized resale of tickets by individuals and platforms.”

See: More Than 100,000 Fans Per Night To Witness Coldplay’s ‘Biggest Ever Shows’

Local news reports can be confusing, the Times of India, for instance, states that “accusations mentioned that tickets originally priced at Rs 2,500 were being resold for as much as Rs 3 lakh (300,000). However, the Mumbai Police found no evidence to support these claims.”

This is misleading, as local media did investigate the onsale and found concrete evidence that tickets were being resold at incredible mark-ups. Evidence included getting direct quotes from ticket resellers on the streets of Mumbai.

What needs to be clarified is that no evidence was found that the primary seller, BookMyShow, had anything to do with it, as the Tribune, for instance, did: “The Mumbai Police concluded that there was no wrongdoing or illegal activity on the part of BookMyShow. With no concrete proof of ticket manipulation, fraud, or price gouging, the case has been officially closed.

BookMyShow has always emphasized that it does not collaborate with any ticket-selling or reselling platforms, nor does it engage with third-party individuals for resale purposes.

What remains is the not-at-all-unfamiliar case of high-in-demand tickets being snatched up on the primary market in bulk, and resold at a much higher price on the secondary market.

Coldplay performed their biggest shows to date at India’s Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Jan. 25-26. The two concerts sold a total of 223,570 tickets – 111,785 per show – grossing $15,696,814.

The three preceding shows at Mumbai’s D Y Patil Stadium sold a total 163,711, grossing $12,819,848, according to the box office reports submitted to Pollstar.

Coldplay is booked by WME worldwide, excluding North America, and is managed by Phil Harvey, Mandi Frost and Arlene Moon. The band kicked off their “Music Of The Spheres World Tour” on March 18, 2022, at Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica, with the trek scheduled to end at London’s Wembley Stadium on Sept. 8, 2025. Among 61 headline reports submitted to Pollstar’s Boxoffice throughout the tour, the band has sold 9.6 million tickets, surpassing $1 billion dollars in ticket sales. Coldplay follows Taylor Swift as the only two artists to break $1 billion in a single tour, becoming the first band to surpass that benchmark.

Subscribe to Pollstar HERE