BookMyShow has initiated a police investigation into third-party apps accused of reselling tickets to Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour in Mumbai at massively inflated prices. Tickets originally priced at ₹12,500 were reportedly sold for as much as ₹7.7 lakh, triggering outrage among fans and sparking concerns over the legality of reselling concert tickets in India.
Simone Khambatta, a digital creator from Mumbai, shared her frustration on Instagram after failing to secure tickets despite spending hours with multiple devices on BookMyShow. Her experience mirrored that of many others, as fans flocked to BookMyShow only to find tickets quickly unavailable. Meanwhile, resale platforms like Viagogo were already listing tickets at five times their original price before the official sale ended.
This situation raised two major questions: how were resellers able to grab large quantities of tickets and sell them at exorbitant prices, and why does one platform monopolize ticket sales in India? Many fans feel that the current system favors resellers and brands offering giveaways rather than individuals trying to buy tickets directly.
BookMyShow’s announcement of Coldplay’s return to India on September 20 sent excitement soaring, especially after the rapid sell-out of tickets for Diljit Dosanjh’s tour earlier this year. However, the Coldplay ticketing fiasco led to widespread anger. Despite BookMyShow’s ‘first come, first served’ basis, many buyers reported inconsistencies in the queuing system, with two people logging in simultaneously receiving vastly different queue numbers.
The situation worsened when brands like Spreeh and WYLD began offering Coldplay tickets as part of promotional giveaways, leading to accusations of early access and favoritism. On September 25, BookMyShow lodged a police complaint against third-party apps involved in ticket reselling.
Abhinav Shrivastava, advocate-on-record at the Supreme Court, explained that while there is no specific central law in India prohibiting ticket resale, the Maharashtra Entertainment Act does ban the resale of tickets at inflated prices, making the Coldplay reselling illegal in Maharashtra. However, no such law applies to concerts in Delhi or other states.
Shrivastava noted that if BookMyShow had made the tickets non-transferable, as many international platforms do, it could have prevented reselling. Currently, BookMyShow’s terms and conditions label tickets as ‘non-refundable’ but do not restrict transfers, enabling the resale market to flourish.
This controversy has reignited the debate over the need for more stringent regulations to curb ticket reselling and the dangers of monopolies in the ticketing industry. Many fans are now calling for more transparency and fairness in the process of ticket sales in India.
