British rock band Coldplay\u2019s upcoming tour of India has triggered a police investigation and dismayed fans after scalpers bought up cheap tickets to resell online for more than $1,000 apiece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thousands of music fans tried and failed to buy tickets for three concerts scheduled in Mumbai for January, sold by popular Indian online ticket portal BookMyShow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All three shows sold out in minutes, and those who missed out were infuriated when they saw $70 tickets appear on resale websites at vastly inflated prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe tickets are being sold at ten times, 20 times, 30 times the price that is being sold on the website itself,\u201d student Anna Abraham, 19, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t feel good about it myself if I knew that I paid for something 30 times more than what I could have paid for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Media reports said BookMyShow\u2019s chief operating officer was questioned by police on Monday after a complaint brought by Mumbai lawyer Amit Vyas, who claimed the vendor was working with \u201cblackmarketeers\u201d to make an extra windfall on ticket sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI checked with nearly 100 people who I know are regulars at concerts, none of them had gotten a ticket,\u201d Vyas said, according to the Indian Express newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis made me suspicious. I then decided to approach the police as I knew that something was amiss.\u201d BookMyShow issued a statement after the public backlash began last week, saying it had \u201cno association\u201d with unauthorised ticket-selling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cScalping and blackmarketing of tickets is strictly condemned and punishable by law in India and BookMyShow vehemently opposes this practice,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Controversies surrounding tickets for major international musical or sporting events are not new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US megastar Taylor Swift lashed out at Ticketmaster in 2022 following fan anger over sales to concerts staged for her globe-spanning The Eras Tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The debacle sparked debate over the Ticketmaster\u2019s privileged position in the industry amid fan complaints of hidden fees, rampant ticket scalping and limited tickets due to presales.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
British rock band Coldplay\u2019s upcoming tour of India has triggered a police investigation and dismayed fans after scalpers bought up cheap tickets to resell online for more than $1,000 apiece. Thousands of music fans tried and failed to buy tickets for three concerts scheduled in Mumbai for January, sold by popular Indian online ticket portal […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":8765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8764"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}