Coldplay fans have a point: There must be a better way to sell gig tickets

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. It’s a conundrum of basic economics: Can prices be kept affordable when demand heavily outweighs supply? It is usually onions, fuels or rare earth metals like dysprosium that trouble us with the question, but this week, it was concert tickets that sparked outrage and stirred musings. Last Sunday, about 13 million Coldplay fans of all ages went online and joined a long queue to snag a grand total of 150,000 tickets.

Naturally, there was heartbreak, as all entry passes for the British rock band’s January show in Mumbai were sold out in less than half an hour. Within minutes, tears turned to howls of anger as thousands of tickets popped up on reseller sites at astronomical prices, some of them five times their face value. In a country once known to seek out free passes and special access, this willingness to fork out eye-popping sums is astonishing.

Who is this concert-goer happy to break the bank and spend over a lakh rupees to watch an artist live on stage? Price pops in the secondary market of ‘scalped’ tickets are one thing, but even primary purchases at ‘official’ windows can set one back by ₹4,000 to ₹35,000 per seat to watch star performers like Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, Diljit Dosanjh or Coldplay. Such a premium is only within the reach of a small but well-off bunch looking for the adventure of a lifetime. Many could fly abroad for a concert.

Once Coldplay tickets soared out of reach, a few who ‘did the math’ concluded it would work out cheaper to catch the band’s show in Abu Dhabi than buy a scalped ticket for Mumbai. But then, there is nothing like the thrill of seeing such a gig right here in one’s backyard. Tours are typically designed to exude a local vibe, and this band’s desi