Yellow Alert: The Price of Being a Coldplay Fan
Anwesha Ghosh
SY BSc (2023-27)
Reading time: 6 minutes
It is 11:59:59 pm on September 22nd, and the billions out of trillions of Coldplay fans are full on alert with their laptops handy to login to the Book My Show website, fueled with more caffeine than Chris Martin himself. Getting a ticket to their Music of the Spheres India tour has been like the Squid Games. Those who qualify get to go to the next level and enjoy their peaceful, serene anthems, and others get stuck in a never-ending loop of unlimited queues, servers crashing, and tickets starting to show up in the black markets for 10 or 20 times the initial price.
Within minutes, social media was on fire with triumph and heartbreak, full of screenshots of a few who snagged the tickets and the rest not being able to secure their spot for what might have been their once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Coldplay’s DY Patil Music of Spheres World tour was grossing over 1 billion dollars, becoming the first tour to hit such a milestone in India. They planned on a tour for 3 consecutive days to make sure everyone gets to be a part of the wonderful experience. The fear of missing out, along with peer pressure building up the demand, became incomparable with the supply.
But, let’s be honest, how many of us even had a chance of snagging one of the tickets in the first place?
DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai can only accommodate about 50,000 fans, with approximately 10,000 people standing. Since the tour was supposed to go on for 3 days, there was a supply of 1.8 lakh tickets, with 1.3 crore trying to purchase the tickets on BookMyShow, which gives everyone a meagre 1.3 percent chance of grabbing a ticket. Due to this overwhelming demand, the Book My Show website crashed within minutes.
Now, with this excess demand in the economy, black market was inevitable. Initially, the prices were being sold in the range of 2500 INR to 35000 INR. Platforms like Viagogo and Craigslist began listing tickets at inflated prices, reaching around 100,000 rupees. This led to scalping, a practice where individuals exploit price inelasticity in the market. By purchasing tickets at face value on platforms like BookMyShow, they then resell them at significantly higher prices to maximise profit.
Three shows alone can bring in over 100 crore rupee ticket sales. This boosts the aggregate demand for the local economy and affects tourism as nearby hotels and rooms were fully booked for Rs 500,000 for a three-night stay. Fans would also prefer staying for a couple of extra days in order to explore the city and dine in the restaurants. Lounges and cafes could host themed nights, special menus, or open mics for engaging and capitalising on the influx of Coldplay fans. This would also lead to a boost in aggregate demand and significantly contribute to the tourism sector.
Naturally, one might wonder if this contributes to India’s GDP in a way.
India’s GDP is $3.89 trillion, driven by major sectors such as agriculture, industry, and technology. Sectors such as tourism contribute to a very small section of the GDP. We should also take into consideration that much of the payment made to the artists might leave the country. Hence limiting longer impacts on the economy’s GDP.
So what’s the solution?
To avoid such a fiasco in the near future, one of the solutions can be NFTs. They are non-fungible tokens, which help the buyer secure ownership over the ticket purchased. They ensure ownership and authenticity of the ticket and also eliminate counterfeits through blockchain technology. This could’ve stopped the scalpers from reselling the tickets in the secondary market and protected the consumers from any violation.
For example, the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Coachella, which is one of the biggest music and arts festivals held in the USA, opted for this method and got positive results.
The bitter truth about snagging tickets only lies in the hands of the one with connections and deeper pockets, and the genuine fans are left hanging. However, this should be a wake-up call for the system to prioritise them over the opportunists, and the industry should soon come up with ways to protect the fans; otherwise, the industry would lose all its credibility.
Unfortunately, this time we will have to make peace with enjoying the concert in our living rooms and create a serene moonlight surrounding us to enjoy ‘The Scientist’.