Coldplay tickets for $11,000? Uproar in India after tickets sold out in minutes and resold for outrageously high prices

By Esha Mitra, Alex Stambaugh and Teele Rebane, CNN

New Delhi (CNN) — Fans eagerly awaiting the return of Coldplay to India were shocked to find tickets being resold online for as much as $11,000, prompting police to seek a statement from the CEO of the shows’ vendor over allegations of fraud.

The British rock band is playing three shows in Mumbai in January as part of its hugely popular Music Of The Spheres tour, its first concerts in the country since 2016.

Tickets were scheduled to go on sale by the official vendor, BookMyShow (BMS), at 12 p.m. local time on September 22. But for many users, the website and app crashed amid the demand.

When fans were able to get into the virtual queue to buy tickets priced from 2,500 to 35,000 rupees ($30 to $417), they said they were behind hundreds of thousands of users.

Within minutes, the tickets were sold out and reappeared on other platforms for as much as 960,000 rupees ($11,458), sparking anger over the purchase process and the suspected use of bots to scoop up seats. To put that into perspective, the World Bank says India’s current GDP per capita is $2,500 a year.

Amit Vyas, a lawyer and founding partner of Mumbai law firm Vertices Partners, was among fans waiting for tickets on the vendor’s website when he was suddenly locked out.

He filed a complaint with police, alleging the online ticketing platform made tickets available to scalpers and third-party websites for resale on the black market.

“Not a single person that I know in Mumbai and outside Mumbai – I got so many calls from friends in Delhi – no one got a ticket,” Vyas told CNN, expressing frustration that more isn’t being done to protect fans against bots and other reseller practices.

On Monday, the founder and CEO of BookMyShow, Ashish Hemjarani, was summoned by Mumbai police’s Economic Offences Wing for questioning over the alleged black marketing of tickets for the concerts, a Mumbai police official said.

In a statement on X, BookMyShow said it had “no association” with any ticket selling or reselling platforms, as well as third party individuals “for the purpose of reselling” of the band’s shows in India, and that it had also filed a complaint with police. The complaint was in connection with the alleged sale of fake tickets for concerts on certain platforms, according to CNN affiliate News18. 

“Scalping is strictly condemned and punishable by law in India. We have filed a complaint with the police authorities and will provide complete support to them in the investigation of this matter,” the vendor said.

Coldplay fans told CNN their attempts to buy tickets to January’s shows at DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai left them frustrated and disappointed.

Arkatapa Basu, a 26-year-old journalist based in the southern city of Bengaluru, said she was waiting behind 130,000 people to buy tickets when she learned a third show had been added.

When she went to join the third show’s waitlist, she found there were 700,000 people waiting ahead of her. “That’s when I decided to give up,” she said.

Ishaan Jhamb, a 22-year-old engineering student from Delhi, said the tickets being resold were so expensive, he and his friends decided to fly nearly four hours to go see the band in Abu Dhabi instead, because it would be more economical.

The ticket-buying process for big concert events has often drawn angst from buyers globally.

Last month, the British rock band Oasis announced a reunion tour, sparking a frenzy of criticism over Ticketmaster’s so-called dynamic pricing, where businesses adjust prices based on factors such as demand.

A Ticketmaster spokesperson told CNN at the time the company does not set ticket prices. According to Ticketmaster’s website, promoters and artists set prices, which can either be fixed or based on demand.

Ticketmaster also faced public scrutiny in November 2022 for its handling of the massively popular Taylor Swift Eras Tour, for which the company says there was “historically unprecedented demand.”

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