Coldplay in Mumbai: App glitch, scalping leave fans ticketless, fuming

MUMBAI: Urvashi Barman was 15 years old when she heard Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’. So when the band announced its India concert this February, the 33-year-old knew she had to make it happen.
On Sunday, Barman and her husband logged onto BookMyShow at 11.30 am with three phones and two laptops between them. At noon, the website and app crashed. Tickets finally went live at 12. 05 pm and at 12.10, she got into a queue with about 15,900 persons ahead of her. Her husband got in via the app at 12.30 pm with 3.4 lakh people ahead of him.
With the sites not responding, Barman was stuck at #3,800 for half an hour around 1 pm. She was suddenly taken to her seat selection at 1.25 pm, and had four minutes to pick three seats and pay. “Even when I was trying to select the seats, the app kept glitching. My hands were shaking when I finally paid ₹30,000 for three tickets,” says Barman, who couldn’t get the ₹12,500 tickets she wanted, settling for the ones for ₹9,000. The latter, incidentally, are being sold on Viagogo for ₹1,20,000.
Coldplay, which will be playing in Mumbai on January 18, 19, and 21, 2025, last performed in India nine years ago. The demand was such that when BookMyShow went live with the tickets, it had to add another date within two hours because everything was sold out.
Glitches and slowness aside, BookMyShow began by forcing people to log off a minute before the tickets went live. Aronjoy Das, 27, a Delhi musician, spent the day coordinating with 15 friends, and logged on till late afternoon for tickets, even waiting for the 2 pm slot for the third date (January 21) that was added at the last minute.
“The chaos was expected,” he said. “It mirrors what happened in the US when Taylor Swift’s concert tickets went live. People will buy and resell tickets later. I’ve already seen people reselling Coldplay tickets in India for 10 times the amount: the ₹3,500 ticket is going for ₹35,000 on platforms like Instagram Since the money won’t go to the artist or organiser, I’d rather go for Lollapalooza Festival. Coldplay, I hope, will return later this year or next year considering how popular they are here.”
Moksha Hegde, a Delhi-based entrepreneur, also rued the fact that thousands of people bought tickets with the sole intention of reselling them. “If you check Reddit, people are selling tickets for a lakh,” she said. The 33-year-old fell in love with Coldplay’s song ‘Fix You’ when she was a teenager, but became a bigger fan after seeing the band’s efforts to become more sustainable. “They release sustainability reports and have set targets to reduce their carbon footprint from their tours,” she said. “I love their music, but seeing how they aren’t just looking at profits but also the planet made me respect them more.”
While Hegde spent her Sunday on BookMyShow, other hopefuls gave up within two hours. Like Rahil Valson, a Dehradun-based fan who works in the sports industry. “I was 16 when I heard ‘Yellow’. It’s a core memory, so I’m going to try another platform to get the tickets. If that doesn’t work, I’ll travel abroad,” he said.
Yashna Bikhchandani, 30, an auditor in Mumbai, is also open to buying the tickets from another platform, but not at an exorbitant rate. She is also confused because BookMyShow has released a statement that it is the only website selling tickets and those bought from another website will be considered fake. “If an opportunity presents itself, I don’t mind considering it but only if the booking experience is not this nightmarish,” she said. “It’s the same experience every time a major event happens on BookMyShow. The website was slow and in the 30 seconds it took to load the queue, there were 4 lakh people ahead of me.” Coldplay is a teenage dream for Bikhchandani: “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall’ was her ringtone when she was 17.
A BookMyShow spokesperson said, “We implemented a queueing system to manage the overwhelming demand and addressed issues caused by suspicious and malicious traffic within minutes, causing a brief delay, but ensuring minimal disruption for genuine fans.”
Mumbai content creator Nitasha Bharwani, 47, knows two people with political connections who got their hands on tickets. “I was hoping to take my 13-year-old to the gig,” she said. “I’ll now try my luck at Abu Dhabi or Hong Kong.”
PR specialist Parul Parmar, also from Mumbai, was hoping to buy the stand tickets of Level 1/2 of the rows A,B,O,P. She gave up after five hours. “I will pay some extra money if I have to but if someone is going to ask me for a kidney for one ticket, I think I’ll give it a miss,” she said.
What Barman fears is the total cost of attending the concert, since she has to fly to Mumbai. “Hotels are already at ₹1,80,000. We’re booking next week, after the surge fades this week,” she said.