Chris Martin of Coldplay performs during day two of the iHeartRadio Music Festival at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States on September 21, 2024. | Photo credit: Steve Marcus
“We’re standing in line for Taylor Swift tickets. This should be easy,” said a friend last night. Big concerts are few and far between in India. Sure, concerts are slowly but surely on the rise and we have a lot of events coming up, but a Coldplay concert, Music of the Spheres World Tour 2025, is a rare event indeed – an ‘adventure of a lifetime’, if you must. Coldplay last visited India in 2016 for a concert that older millennials remember with great fondness.
It’s already passed on a day that will now be known in years to come as ‘Coldplay Ticketing Sunday’, and people on the internet are divided. Some have managed to get tickets but can’t believe it, and some who haven’t been so lucky are cautiously accepting. Many others are in denial, looking at reels and tweets wondering if anyone has actually scored tickets?
There are other innovative, but expensive solutions too – there are debates on whether it would be a good idea to book a room at the Marriott in Navi Mumbai near the DY Patil Stadium for a different concert experience. There are also scalpers aplenty, and a lot of anger at tickets being sold at exorbitant prices, and how planning and travelling to a concert abroad would make better financial sense.
Before ticketing was to begin on Sunday, many memorised the seating charts carefully, analysed multiple reels to see which seats would be best to book, and made plans across cities for group bookings. Some pertinent questions were raised in the groups – if even one of us gets connected, how will we log in via our mobiles and laptops and still stay in touch with each other? Will we all be on a Zoom call and let it run in the background? If we get only two tickets instead of four, whom will we politely ask to leave?
Despite all this extensive preparation, it wasn’t long before everyone realized that the road to the adventure of a lifetime would be an adventure in itself.
While ticket booking was expected to begin from noon, chaos ensued as ticketing portal BookMyShow crashed, with it seeming like lakhs of people were unable to log in to try their luck. Even amid the chaos, memes flew in, with many references to Coldplay’s “Fix You” being turned into “Fix It”. When ticketing opened a few minutes later and people got into the virtual queue, they found they were on a waitlist that numbered in the thousands or even lakhs. A third show was also added, giving fans another chance to try their luck with tickets.
Chennai resident Ashwin Radhakrishnan, who managed to book tickets for his friend, attributed his skill and luck to his ability to regularly book tatkal tickets for trains. “My strike rate is very good and I have become accustomed to the system. We keep trying till we get the tickets. A friend challenged me to book tickets for him and I managed to get him a standing ticket for the second day of the concert,” he said.
The sudden change in the number of tickets allowed per person from eight to four put many concert plans in jeopardy, just before ticketing began. For Pooja Hemalatha from Chennai, the Coldplay concert was part of a bigger plan — a friendship pact involving a large group.
“When I queued up for tickets, there were lakhs of people ahead of me. However, it was a game of luck that an additional show was announced and I managed to join the queue for their third concert. I was at 6,450, and managed to get a standing ticket for the last day,” she says. However, the booking involved a lot of strategy on her part – logging in to multiple devices with different IDs, getting friends to try their luck by logging in at different places, and figuring out quick payment options ahead of time.
A BookMyShow spokesperson said that nearly 13 million (1.3 crore) fans logged in for tickets. He said on Sunday, “Today is a historic moment in the history of live entertainment in India, as we witnessed true fan following, tremendous love and incredible excitement in India for Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour 2025 on BookMyShow.”
BookMyShow and BookMyShow Live further added that they have worked hard to ensure every fan has a fair chance to secure tickets, providing clear, step-by-step booking guides and maintaining transparent communication through all official channels. “We implemented a queue system to manage the huge demand and resolved issues caused by suspicious and malicious traffic within minutes, causing slight delays but ensuring minimal disruption for genuine fans. Due to unprecedented demand, a third Mumbai show was added soon after, which also received a great response,” they added.
After all this, there is no end to the discussions about what preparations are being made for India’s biggest musical event in the next few months. The road to the concert has just begun, this is the next agenda after train, flight and hotel bookings.
Published – September 23, 2024 05:15 PM IST
