'We have filed a complaint with the police authorities.'
Fans of the British band Coldplay and singer Diljit Dosanjh were left flustered and disappointed when they were unable to book tickets for their concerts.
Over 13 million people logged into BookMyShow on Sunday, September 22, 2024, hoping to grab one of the 150,000 tickets available for Coldplay's Mumbai concert in January 2025.
Tickets sold out in less than an hour, leaving many disappointed for the upcoming shows at the D Y Patil Stadium.
Social media platform X was flooded with complaints about the long queues, site crashes and site errors.
In addition to this, fans pointed out the inflated prices of tickets being sold on secondary platforms, some even stated that a few other sites had been selling tickets for Coldplay before the official site had released them.
Amid this, Viagogo, a multinational ticket exchange and ticket resale brand, was also reselling concert tickets of Coldplay and Diljit Dosanjh at inflated prices.
A ticket originally priced at Rs 12,500 was sold for Rs 336,000 for the Coldplay concert.
In addition, standing tickets, initially priced at Rs 6,450, were being resold for up to Rs 50,000 for the same concert. The band had previously performed in India in 2016.
These caused Zomato's ticket platform Zomato Live to send a legal notice to Viagogo for selling Diljit Dosanjh concert tickets, said a person in the know.
Zomato is the official partner for selling Dosanjh's upcoming concert tickets.
Business Standard could not confirm the exact timeline for the legal notice sent to Viagogo.
Apart from this, Zomato Live has filed cybercrime complaints against several other secondary ticket-selling platforms for unauthorised sales of tickets, according to another person in the know.
The pre-sale tickets for the Diljit Dosanjh concert went live on September 10, which could be accessed by HDFC Pixel Card users. The general ticket sale went live on September 12.
'We have filed a complaint with the police authorities,' said BookMyShow in an Instagram post.
The entertainment and ticketing company further stated that they have no association with any ticket-selling/reselling platforms such as Viagogo and Gigsberg, or third-party individuals, for the purpose of reselling Coldplay's Music of the Spheres World Tour 2025 in India.
BookMyShow has not mentioned where the complaint was filed or the nature of the complaint.
No comments were given to Business Standard if BookMyShow has issued notices.
Viagogo is fully compliant with all regulations in all markets in which the business operates, it told Business Standard in an e-mail response.
'Tickets listed on Viagogo come from a range of sources including multinational event organisers, professional resellers, corporate ticket holders, season ticket holders, sponsors and fans who simply can no longer attend an event,' it added.
If BookMyShow or the concert organiser doesn't send legal notices to entities selling tickets outside of the official channel, it could imply that the tickets being sold by these entities might not be considered illegal, said a person who did not want to be named.
"The absence of a legal challenge could mean that these secondary sellers are operating with valid inventory," the person said.
Opaque ticket selling system
Ankur Bhasin, secretary of the Media and Entertainment Association of India, said that from the legislature's perspective, technically scalping of tickets in India is not illegal.
Since the tickets are linked to the Session ID as compared to the Booking ID of a person, Bhasin highlighted there are high chances for it to be resold on reselling platforms.
"There are two ways to curtail it. One is the legislation and the second is by tracking each and every ticket sale that is being done, which, of course, the platforms are not doing correctly because they don't want it to be tracked," Bhasin added.
If those tickets were transferred to another party without an official sale, it constitutes tax evasion, said a lawyer on the condition of anonymity.
The platform reselling the tickets should have received them from an authorised source, which would involve proper documentation and taxation, the lawyer added.
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
