Police in Mumbai seek statement from ticketing platform CEO over Coldplay concert

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MUMBAI (Reuters) – Police in India’s financial capital Mumbai have sought a statement from the CEO of a ticketing platform that sold the tickets to a Coldplay concert in the city, after complaints that many tickets were sold in the black market, media reports said.

British band Coldplay is scheduled to perform on the outskirts of Mumbai in January on an Asia tour. Tickets for the initial two concerts sold out within minutes of going on sale on Sept. 22, leaving hundreds of thousands of fans disappointed.

Tickets appeared on social media hours after they were sold out, some at nearly 10 times the price, prompting calls for an investigation into ticketing platform BookMyShow.

The company said in a statement on X last week that it had nothing to do with platforms that resell tickets, and warning fans that tickets sold on the secondary market can be fake.

Police in Mumbai, where the company is based, asked CEO Ashish Hemrajani to appear and provide a statement following a complaint, several local media websites reported without citing a source. Mumbai police and BookMyShow did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

An estimated 10 million fans were in queue for approximately 150,000 tickets, leaving most disappointed. Coldplay added an extra performance but tickets to that concert were sold out as well.

Artists such as Ed Sheeran recently performed in India, which has a large young, English speaking population, while Dua Lipa and Alan Walker are some of the artists scheduled to have concerts later this year and early next year.