The Coldplay concerts in India have sold out within an hour, leading to many fans disappointment.
Tickets for the first Ahmedabad show, scheduled for January 25, went live on 12 pm IST and sold out within a few minutes. Many fans were prepared with multiple devices. “Here we go again”, one user commented, while another wrote, “Getting ready for another heartbreak”.
Coldplay announced a second show in Ahmedabad, the fifth one in India, after tickets for the first show sold out. The tickets went live at 1 pm IST on BookMyShow but those too sold out quickly. Many users also complained about the various technical issues they faced, like being kicked out of the queue, not being able to select seats, and getting logged out.
Third-party sellers like Viagogo were quick to snag a few tickets. The seats, which were initially priced from Rs 2,500 to Rs 12,500, were now listed from Rs 20,500 to over Rs 3,70,000 on Viagogo. The tickets were made available on their site less than half-an-hour after the sale went live.
This comes after the fiasco in September during the sale of the Coldplay's Mumbai show tickets, where many fans were disappointed when they could not get tickets and later found out that many third-party sites had started selling tickets at extremely high rates, going up to almost Rs 7 lakh.
ALSO READ: Coldplay India: Fans angry over tickets being re-sold for exorbitant prices
Though the Enforcement Directorate initiated a probe into the illegal sale of tickets, and the Mumbai police summoned the BookMyShow CEO Ashish Hemrajani for questioning, it seems that nothing has changed.
There is no direct law in India against reselling or ticket scalping but unfair trade practices under the Consumers Protection Act, 2019 does protect consumers from unfair trade practices, which includes being overcharged for goods and services. Ticket scalping could constitute such a practice.