By- Riya Gautam
“When you try your best, but you don’t succeed”
These lines from the legendary song “Fix you” by Coldplay perfectly describe how next to every Indian fan who sacrificed his/her entire Sunday for the sake of one concert felt. Just to be clear, it definitely did not “fix” us, rather it put us in a mental state where we now needed fixing!
Yes, you heard it right. It might look like madness to some people but waiting your whole life for an opportunity and seeing it get snatched right before your eyes does not really have a pleasant effect. For context, we’re talking about the Coldplay Speares World Tour in which they’re supposed to perform in Mumbai in January 2025. The tickets were supposed to go live at sharp 12 noon on September 22nd, 2024; and the whole of India was ready with multiple devices per head as if preparing for war, with all their most lethal weapons. And we were ready to fight, but sadly, we never reached the battlefield!
For those of you who are diehard fans, or even those who tried to get the tickets for family or friends would be aware that Book My Show crashed and did NOT show the tickets at the time it was supposed to; even the app had an “error” and could not connect to the server. The wildest thing here is that before tickets even went live, sites like Viagogo and Gigsberg already had these out at 4x and 5x the prices while the rest of India waited in queues of hundreds of thousands, with their fingers crossed, only to see it flashing “sold out” on their screens. Agreed, India has a ginormous population but seeing so many people wanting to attend a Coldplay concert undoubtedly took us all by surprise.
1.3 crore people applied for these tickets, which is 50% more than those who applied for the Bajaj Housing Finance IPO, if we delve into a comparative analysis. One question that surely came to all our minds, “Where did all these people come from and do they even listen to Coldplay?” Apparently and unfortunately, most of them can’t even name two songs by that band, let alone the names of the members. But then why do they want the tickets? There are a lot of things to consider here; I’ll break it down for you.
First of all, these so-called influencers “influenced” them into believing that it is something they should attend, for it is a once in a lifetime opportunity by over-hyping it insanely. I second the fact that it is indeed magical, however, let’s face it, no one would enjoy a concert if they don’t know the songs; that’s common sense. Second, those damn resellers! These are those wonderful people who bought the tickets at 2-4k and are shamelessly selling them at lakhs, because guess what, its easy money. A lot of people have even been scammed with fake tickets simply because when you’re desperate and not thinking straight, you easily get fooled. So many people were just there in those queues to try their luck and sell the tickets at highly escalated prices. God only knows how those sited could manage to get their hands at the tickets to resell them in black before the actual “official” sale even went live. Another very weird thing that happened was that people we know who logged in seconds and in a few cases even minutes after we did, managed to get a position in the queue before us! Absurd! Third, the giveaways! So many people bought tickets in bulk (somehow), only for giveaways, to literally buy more followers by luring them!
Seeing the frenzy and hysteria that drowned India, particularly Mumbai that afternoon, another show was announced on the 21st of January, other than the initial ones on the 18th and 19th and tickets were aired at 2pm on BMS. Obviously, fans got their hopes up again, but in vain, yet again. It was the same scene being repeated with people seeing “999999+” people ahead of them in queues, obviously not an amount of people the DY Patil Stadium can accommodate. Enraged, shattered, disheartened, helpless fans could do absolutely nothing.
People are even considering going all the way to Abu Dhabi and see the concert there because even that would be more economical. The ones who could afford to buy a 2500 INR ticket being sold at 40k bought it, needless to say, the majority couldn’t. In a city like Mumbai, home to almost all of Indian celebrities, where the cost of living itself is very high, a lot of people can and will buy these overpriced tickets, nevertheless. This leaves middle-class people like you and me, with no tickets and no one to “fix us”; no chance to attend the concert with our “yellow”, see the lights “guiding us” or to witness “a sky full of stars”. It’s not fair and it is indeed out of our hands.
Black tickets reselling, corruption blah blah, yes, all that is happening but something that I found personally shocking was my friends getting in touch with dealers and indulging in black marketing, just for the sake of some commission. People my age, students in high school who even have their exams going on at this time are dealing. If this isn’t enough, there are school kids going into the dark web, simply to get tickets at cheaper rates. The desperation is driving people as mad as march hares! Not only are people forgetting the risks involved, the morality compass has also been thrown in the bin; and seeing such young people get involved really makes me question the future of this country, no offense. These things might even be common and not a big deal to a lot of people, and I’m not trying to anger them or prove anything here, but I think we can all agree that high schoolers have better ways to use their time. There is a fine line between doing these things for fun and making it a habit which will disappear very soon once the money comes pouring in- a classic example of human greed ruining even the best of things.
This is probably the first time an actual investigation is being done to catch hold of these various third-party resellers scamming people. Even though it is only fruitful if we see some results, we cannot ignore the fact that something is better than nothing. Coldplay might’ve been sold-play this time, but their songs surely hold a place in our hearts and touch our souls in a way that cannot be described by mere words. Fans deserve better! At this point, we just hope that the message somehow goes across!
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