Saw tickets on Viagogo before 12 noon yesterday: Users recount their harrowing experience while booking Coldplay tickets yesterday
Sep 24, 2024, 10:57 IST
Yesterday, ticketing platform BookMyShow crashed seconds after opening for Coldplay’s India's leg of ‘Music of the Spheres’ world tour. Many people were stranded in the queue, which stretched into lakhs, while all tickets were lapped up within minutes.
However, some people reported getting the same tickets, albeit at massively inflated prices on sites like Viagogo.
“I had seen Coldplay's tickets on Viagogo even before 12 noon yesterday, well before the ticket window on BookMyShow was to open”, recounts Yumna Ahmad, a Delhi-based communications professional
And even as BookMyShow shows that all of Coldplay's shows on 18th, 19th and 21st January, 2025 are sold out, Viagogo continues to offer some tickets for sale. For instance, Viagogo currently has Level 1 Section P tickets at Rs 34,178 each. At BookMyShow, their original price was Rs 4,000, marking a 8x+ increase.
Floor tickets for the same concert, originally priced at Rs 6,450 are available at Rs 40,908 each.
Tanishka Mehtani, a Delhi-based strategic communications professional and a die-hard Coldplay fan, had the BookMyShow window open on three screens-her laptop, PC and tablet. In fact, she had also coordinated with her friends on a WhatsApp group to best strategize how she could get hold of 5 tickets for her group.
She logged in at 11:45 am and yet, she could not move past the 88,000 mark. Later, she came in touch with a seller on Instagram, who had 4 tickets for the floor, which they were selling for Rs 2 lakh each.
“The seller must have known the high premium these tickets came with, since he was unrelenting and not willing to negotiate even a bit. Apart from three screens, 10 of my acquaintances were also in the queue to get tickets, but none of them could get one”, recounted Mehtani.
Lounge tickets, previously available for Rs 35,000 at BookMyShow, are now being sold at Viagogo for Rs 11,52,857 each. Similarly, prices of Level 2 tickets, which are the costliest amongst the three available levels, have already gone into lakhs on the site. Level 2 Section B tickets were priced at Rs 12,500 originally. But on Viagogo, the same tickets are available for Rs 96,229, marking a clear 8x premium.
Delhi-based management professional Tanvi Sovani, had applied for an HDFC Pixel card in hopes of getting hands on the tickets during the pre-sale event, which was exclusively meant for HDFC card holders.
Hours later, she found a distant acquaintance ready to sell 4 tickets for the Silver area, which was originally priced at Rs 1,499. The catch? The tickets were now priced at Rs 11,000. 3 hours later, she found out that those tickets too, had been sold. In an absurd display of pricing on Viagogo, the fanpit in relatively smaller cities like Chandigarh or Indore, Lucknow are priced at Rs 3,36,664 and around Rs 60,000 and Rs 70,000 respectively.
However, paying such a significant amount to strangers via Instagram or other social media platforms is fraught with risks, which you should avoid. Many people have also tagged Viagogo as a fraudulent site, noting that they had been conned and not given tickets, despite paying such exorbitant prices. Online reviews of the ticket reselling platform have been largely negative, with many people having called out the platform on varous social media platforms for scamming and non-receipt of the ticket at the last minute.
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However, some people reported getting the same tickets, albeit at massively inflated prices on sites like Viagogo.
“I had seen Coldplay's tickets on Viagogo even before 12 noon yesterday, well before the ticket window on BookMyShow was to open”, recounts Yumna Ahmad, a Delhi-based communications professional
And even as BookMyShow shows that all of Coldplay's shows on 18th, 19th and 21st January, 2025 are sold out, Viagogo continues to offer some tickets for sale. For instance, Viagogo currently has Level 1 Section P tickets at Rs 34,178 each. At BookMyShow, their original price was Rs 4,000, marking a 8x+ increase.
Floor tickets for the same concert, originally priced at Rs 6,450 are available at Rs 40,908 each.
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She logged in at 11:45 am and yet, she could not move past the 88,000 mark. Later, she came in touch with a seller on Instagram, who had 4 tickets for the floor, which they were selling for Rs 2 lakh each.
“The seller must have known the high premium these tickets came with, since he was unrelenting and not willing to negotiate even a bit. Apart from three screens, 10 of my acquaintances were also in the queue to get tickets, but none of them could get one”, recounted Mehtani.
Lounge tickets, previously available for Rs 35,000 at BookMyShow, are now being sold at Viagogo for Rs 11,52,857 each. Similarly, prices of Level 2 tickets, which are the costliest amongst the three available levels, have already gone into lakhs on the site. Level 2 Section B tickets were priced at Rs 12,500 originally. But on Viagogo, the same tickets are available for Rs 96,229, marking a clear 8x premium.
Diljit Fiasco
Surprisingly, the site also continues to show tickets for Diljit’s India leg of Dil-luminati tour, even though they seem to be sold out elsewhere. Not only does it show that new tickets have been added to their website recently, the overall charges exclude delivery fee as well, which means you will have to incur extra charges to get your hands on the ticket. However, in a surprising contrast, the website also mentions that the tickets are available for instant download as well.Advertisement
For Dosanjh's concert in JLN Stadium, Delhi on October 26th, 2024, the fan pit tickets were available at Rs 19,999. The same tickets are now available on Viagogo for Rs 91,710. In some places like Delhi, only 2 categories of tickets were available (Gold and Fanpit). Delhi-based management professional Tanvi Sovani, had applied for an HDFC Pixel card in hopes of getting hands on the tickets during the pre-sale event, which was exclusively meant for HDFC card holders.
Hours later, she found a distant acquaintance ready to sell 4 tickets for the Silver area, which was originally priced at Rs 1,499. The catch? The tickets were now priced at Rs 11,000. 3 hours later, she found out that those tickets too, had been sold. In an absurd display of pricing on Viagogo, the fanpit in relatively smaller cities like Chandigarh or Indore, Lucknow are priced at Rs 3,36,664 and around Rs 60,000 and Rs 70,000 respectively.
However, paying such a significant amount to strangers via Instagram or other social media platforms is fraught with risks, which you should avoid. Many people have also tagged Viagogo as a fraudulent site, noting that they had been conned and not given tickets, despite paying such exorbitant prices. Online reviews of the ticket reselling platform have been largely negative, with many people having called out the platform on varous social media platforms for scamming and non-receipt of the ticket at the last minute.