Coldplay tickets for US$11,000? Shock in India after tickets sold out in minutes and resold at outrageous prices

() – Fans eagerly awaiting Coldplay’s return to India were shocked to find tickets resold online for up to $11,000, prompting police to seek a statement from the CEO of the shows’ seller over allegations of fraud.

The British rock band will play three concerts in Mumbai in January as part of their popular Music Of The Spheres tour, their first concerts in the country since 2016.

Tickets were scheduled to go on sale through the official supplier, BookMyShow (BMS), at 12 pm local time on September 22. But for many users, the website and app crashed amid the lawsuit.

When fans were able to enter the virtual queue to buy tickets with prices ranging from 2,500 to 35,000 rupees ($30 to 417), they said they were behind hundreds of thousands of users.

Within minutes, tickets sold out and reappeared on other platforms worth up to 960,000 rupees ($11,458), sparking anger over the purchasing process and the alleged use of bots to get seats. To put it in perspective, the World Bank says India’s current GDP per capita is $2,500 a year.

Amit Vyas, a lawyer and founding partner at Mumbai law firm Vertices Partners, was among fans waiting for tickets on the seller’s website when it suddenly crashed.

He filed a complaint with the Police, alleging that the online ticketing platform made tickets available to resellers and third-party websites for resale on the black market.

“I don’t know any person in Mumbai or outside Mumbai. I received many calls from friends in Delhi. Nobody got a ticket,” Vyas told , expressing frustration that more isn’t being done to protect fans against bots and other reseller practices.

On Monday, BookMyShow founder and CEO Ashish Hemjarani was summoned by the Economic Crimes Unit of the Mumbai Police for questioning over the alleged black market in concert tickets, a Mumbai Police official said.

In a statement on report to the Police. The complaint was related to the alleged sale of fake concert tickets on certain platforms, according to affiliate News18.

“Reselling products is strictly condemned and punished by law in India. “We have filed a complaint with the police authorities and we will provide them with all our support in investigating this matter,” the seller stated.

Coldplay fans told that their attempts to buy tickets for the January shows at the DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai left them frustrated and disappointed.

Arkatapa Basu, a 26-year-old journalist who lives in the southern city of Bengaluru, said she was waiting behind 130,000 people to buy tickets when she learned that a third show had been added.

When she went to join the waiting list for the third show, she found that there were 700,000 people waiting before her. “That’s when I decided to give up,” he said.

Ishaan Jhamb, a 22-year-old engineering student from Delhi, said the resold tickets were so expensive that he and his friends decided to fly almost four hours to see the band in Abu Dhabi because it would be cheaper.

The process of purchasing tickets for large concerts often caused angst among buyers around the world.

Last month, British rock band Oasis announced a reunion tour, sparking a frenzy of criticism over Ticketmaster’s so-called dynamic pricing, where companies adjust prices based on factors such as demand.

A Ticketmaster spokesperson told at the time that the company does not set ticket prices. According to the Ticketmaster website, promoters and artists set prices, which can be fixed or based on demand.

Ticketmaster also faced public scrutiny in November 2022 over its handling of the hugely popular Taylor Swift Eras Tour, for which the company says there was “historically unprecedented demand.”