Concert Mania: BookMyShow, Zomato Take Legal Action Against Ticket Reselling Platforms

Online ticketing major BookMyShow has filed a police complaint in connection to the reselling of the tickets for its exclusive concert, ‘Coldplay: Music Of The Spheres World Tour’. 

In a statement, BookMyShow said it has no association with ticket selling/ reselling platforms such as Viagogo and Gigsberg and other third-party individuals reselling the tickets for the Coldplay concert.

“Scalping is strictly condemned and punishable by law in India. We have filed a complaint with the police authorities and will provide complete support to them in the investigation of this matter,” the ticketing platform said. 

Tickets for the concert went live on the platform on Sunday (September 22) at 1.30 PM and were sold out within minutes. Such was the demand that BookMyShow’s platform also crashed, leading to a public outcry on social media. 

Ticket prices for the concert started at INR 12,500. However, tickets are being sold for as much as INR 4 Lakh on the aforementioned reselling platforms. Shortly after going live with the ticket sale, BookMyShow released a statement saying that the concert tickets were being listed on these platforms before and after they actually went live. 

This comes at a time when BookMyShow is bullish on exclusive international events owing to high demand. Earlier this month, Inc42 reported that the company bought exclusive rights to host ‘Sunburn Festival’ for hundreds of crores a few years ago, and this has mostly been a profitable investment. 

Another major concert seeing similar audience interest as the Coldplay’s is Diljit Dosanjh’s ‘Dil-luminati Tour – India’, exclusive to Zomato Live. Tickets for the October 26 show in Delhi were also sold out in a similar timeline and are currently being sold on the reselling platforms. 

While the ticket prices for the sold out show started from INR 12,999, the tickets are being sold on Viagogo currently for as much as INR 53,000. According to a report by Business Standard, Zomato’s ticketing platform Zomato Live has sent a legal notice to Viagogo for selling the tickets for the Dosanjh concert. 

Besides, Zomato Live has also filed cybercrime complaints against several other secondary ticket-selling platforms for unauthorised sale of tickets, a source told the publication. 

Inc42 has reached out to the foodtech major for a common on the development. The story will be updated on receiving a response. 

This comes shortly after Zomato announced the launch of an in-house ticket reselling platform. On August 27, Zomato launched ‘Book Now, Sell Anytime’ feature for users to list their tickets on the app for sale for a price lower or higher than their original purchase price. The platform is set to go live on its app from September 30, starting with the ‘Zomato Feeding India Concert’.

Meanwhile, Zomato is also preparing to launch a separate ticketing app ‘District’ to take on BookMyShow. In August, Zomato acquired the movie and events ticketing business of Paytm for INR 2,048 Cr in an all-cash deal.