Ticketless to Coldplay

EARLIER LAST WEEK, social media in India became the site for much millennial and Gen Z anguish. They had gathered physically, many in large groups, long before the appointed hour, and— anticipating challenges—used all available devices to get their hands on tickets to the British band Coldplay’s two concerts in Mumbai early next year. But, despite devoting much of their day to this pursuit, most were left disappointed, and they flooded social media with their stories of unending digital queues and website crashes. According to the booking platform, BookyMyShow, as many as 1.3 crore individuals had logged in to buy the 90,000 tickets available. A third concert was also added, but here too the tickets disappeared within the blink of an eye.

Many of these tickets became available within minutes in the black market, their price many times over the original cost. Tickets that were originally priced between ₹2,500 and ₹12,500 were going for, according to some reports, as high as ₹9 lakh and higher.

Demand often tends to outstrip supply in India, whether it is a seat to a medical college or a secure government job. But the country had never witnessed this sort of a clamour for a music concert before. And the complaints about not being able to secure tickets, and the alleged black marketing of the tickets, have now triggered a police investigation, and according to media reports, executives of the booking platform have been questioned.

This episode throws up many interesting insights. One of course is the sheer number of the coun­try’s youths with large disposable incomes today—over 1.3 crore, if you go by only those who logged in—who would think little of shell­ing out vast sums, even lakhs in the black market, to catch a Coldplay concert. The expenses also include the paraphernalia around such concerts. According to reports, most large hotels in Navi Mumbai, where the concert venue DY Patil Stadium is located, are already booked on those days. And those that are available are charging upwards of ₹1 lakh for a night. Some fans who had the foresight—and spare cash—to know securing tickets would be difficult, are believed to have booked rooms in a plush hotel that overlooks the stadium. The muted glass of your hotel windows may come in the way of listening to the voice of your favourite musician, but at least you can see some of the concert, and have been there, somewhat.

The second is that of the culture of concert going itself. India has traditionally never been a place international music stars and bands toured to. You can probably count the number of big artists who held concerts in their prime here on your fingertips. Those who listened to Western music was far too small for a big band or an artist to consider holding a show here. But this appears to be changing in recent times. Several Western chart-toppers have turned up in recent times, from Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran to Alan Walker and Dua Lipa. In fact, Walker and Lipa are performing again this year, and Coldplay’s concerts next year will be their second act in the country.

The upper crust of India’s youths is more connected to its counterparts elsewhere, and the culture it inhabits, whether it is TV shows, the latest Marvel films or music concerts, is now almost the same. In fact, India’s live music scene itself has been growing rapidly in recent years. According to one report, the live music business was estimated to have generated about ₹800 crore in revenue last year. This figure, it is expected, will go up 25 per cent by 2025. “Like for other industries, India is a booming market for the music business as well. There is a huge demographic that is young and has money to spend. Everyone wants a piece of the pie,” Brian Tellis, one of the founders of the Mahindra Blues music festival, was quoted as saying to BBC.

The Coldplay concert might be our first big case of ticket reselling, or what is more commonly referred to as ticket scalping. But this is a worldwide phenomenon. Automated bots are known to harvest tickets in bulk, much faster than any human can log in and buy tickets online. There have been several cases of ticket scalping, and in recent times, some platforms such as Ticketmaster in the US have begun to push for online auctions of their tickets instead. Here, the price of a concert ticket, like an Uber cab during surge pricing, is based on its demand, and in fact the price at which you eventu­ally buy your ticket might prove to be as high as one scalped in the past, but in the case of online auctions, the profits go to the platform, and presumably the musician, instead of someone who wrote the code for an automated bot.

After the brouhaha over the tickets, BookMyShow posted on X that “scalping and black marketing of tickets was against Indian law.” But the rules around ticket scalping in India aren’t as clear-cut. Back in 2011, for instance, a freelance software developer in Chandigarh named Mandeep Singh was found reselling five tickets of the India-Pakistan World Cup semi-final match that year. He was reselling the tickets that originally cost ₹250 for ₹1.25 lakh on eBay. Singh was arrested and charged under Section 66-A of the Information Technology Act and Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code. But the Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted him in 2015, noting that there is no legal restriction against reselling match tickets, and that since both buyer and seller were aware of the original ticket cost, no fraud had taken place.

What left many amused by the Coldplay fiasco was the mad scramble these tickets generated, and the ensuing meltdown when they couldn’t be secured. It was just a ticket to a seat at a concert, many seemed to suggest, and not a seat into your preferred IIT. Chetan Bhagat, the popular writer-turned-commentator, could have been voicing the surprise of many when he posted on X, “On one hand we get figures of In­dian salary percentiles and on the other there’s near mania for concert tickets. Who’s paying so much and buying all these tickets? What percentage of your monthly salary are people spending on these tickets? Some YOLO logic here? What?”

Was it YOLO (you only live once) logic or FOMO (fear of missing out) that pushed so many towards the precipice of a meltdown? Some of it was no doubt the case. A popular Instagram reel, made when the concert was announced, shows many youths professing their great love for the band, but every­one draws a blank when asked to name even a single member.

Coldplay is one of the most popular bands going around today. The saccharine sweetness and the excess positivity of their songs may not be universally liked, but these are the very qualities that make the band fill stadiums globally, crash booking platforms, and ensure you have heard of the band, even if you can’t name a single member. Securing a Coldplay ticket is announcing yourself as part of this larger more aspirational culture, to be part of a common singalong from Bandra to Brooklyn. The Coldplay concert rush in Mumbai was both peak FOMO and a reminder of how urbane and affluent India’s youths have become.

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