Coldplay's Music of the Spheres Tour Causes Fan Rush in India
Coldplay, one of the most influential rock bands of the 21st century, is making a highly anticipated return to India as part of their "Music of the Spheres" World Tour. Coldplay has amassed a massive fan base across the globe, including in India, due to their emotive live performances and chart-topping hits. Many fans were excited about the band's upcoming shows at the DY Patil Sports Stadium in Navi Mumbai on January 18 and 19, 2025, but were ultimately disappointed by how quickly the tickets sold out.
Ticket Sale Leaves Fans Disappointed
On September 22, 2024, we saw the official release of tickets for Coldplay's shows in India on BookMyShow. The tickets quickly sold out. The website was unable to manage the unprecedented traffic surge, which infuriated fans who had been waiting months to see the British rock band perform. In an attempt to buy one of the few 1.5 lakh tickets available, almost 1.3 crore users reportedly tried to log in at the same time. There were significant glitches with the website, leaving a lot of fans waiting hours for tickets only to discover that they had all been sold out in less than half an hour.
To meet the overwhelmingly high demand, a third show was added on January 21, 2025, but even those tickets sold out in seconds. On social media, fans ridiculed the scenario by calling it "Soldplay," playfully expressing their disappointment at being unable to get tickets. The incident has caused a great deal of annoyance among Coldplay's Indian fan base, with 90% of them saying they were unable to get tickets.
Moreover, scalping surfaced as a darker aspect of the ticketing craze when Coldplay's shows sold out. Initially priced at Rs 6,500, the tickets were quickly put up for resale at extravagant prices, with some going as high as Rs 80,000. Up to 1.8 lakh rupees were charged for the resale of premium tickets, which were originally valued at 35,000 rupees. This left many genuine fans disheartened, unable to afford the inflated prices as opportunistic resellers took advantage of the high demand.
The majority of the issues were handled by BookMyShow, the official ticketing website for Coldplay's shows in India. The chaos was made worse by repeated platform crashes, with lineups reportedly surpassing 13 lakh customers per minute. Before the sale, the maximum number of tickets that any user could purchase was eight, but it was lowered to four minutes before it started. Although the platform has since announced a special offering of "Infinity Tickets," which will go on sale on November 22, 2024, at 2,000 rupees each, the availability remains uncertain, and fans are hoping for another chance.
Record-Breaking "Music of the Spheres" World Tour
Coldplay's "Music of the Spheres" World Tour has captured the attention of millions of fans worldwide since it began in March 2022. With nearly $945 million in revenue, it is currently the second-highest-grossing tour of all time, only surpassed by Taylor Swift's record-breaking "Eras Tour," which brought in over $1.04 billion. At 164 shows between 2022 and 2024, Coldplay's tour is expected to be the most attended in history, with over 10 million tickets sold. The tour, which started in Costa Rica, will come to an end in August 2025 following a series of shows at London's Wembley Stadium.
The tour has seen some of the largest audiences in Coldplay's career, with six shows at Wembley Stadium in August 2022 drawing a crowd of 450,000 fans. Additional noteworthy events included four sold-out Coldplay concerts at Stadio Olimpico in Rome, where 252,000 event tickets were sold, and two sold-out shows in Pasadena's Rose Bowl Stadium, which drew 90,888 fans each. As Coldplay is one of the most popular live bands of all time, fans worldwide keep coming to watch them perform live.
A major factor driving the popularity of Coldplay's tour is the huge success of their Music of the Spheres album. The album contains some of the most popular songs, such as "My Universe," which features BTS and has 310 million views on YouTube. "Higher Power," with almost 73.7 million views, comes next. One big hit is "Let Somebody Go," which has about 73.2 million views and features Selena Gomez. Other significant ones are "Biutyful," which has 23 million views, "Humankind," which has 21 million views, and "People of the Pride," which has 9 million views.
Furthermore, in addition to its music, Coldplay's "Music of the Spheres" World Tour is notable for its environmental initiatives. With the band's commitment to making its tours as environmentally friendly as possible, they hope to plant over 5 million trees by the end of the tour, one tree for every ticket purchased.
Interestingly, the band uses only renewable energy for its performances, and by recycling and composting, they have kept 72% of the tour's garbage out of landfills. Coldplay has encouraged fans to participate in these sustainability efforts by offering low-carbon transport options and providing reusable LED wristbands made from compostable materials.
As Coldplay's Music of the Spheres World Tour continues to shatter records, fans around the world, including in India, are determined to be a part of this historic musical journey. Even though a lot of people were disappointed by the first round of ticket sales, their excitement is maintained by the possibility of getting "Infinity Tickets" in the future.