Coldplay concert: PIL in high court to curb black marketing, ticket scalping at major events

Coldplay concert: Amid allegations of foul play during the sale of tickets for the upcoming Coldplay concert in Mumbai in January 2025, a public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Bombay High Court seeking guidelines to curb black marketing and ticket scalping at major events. The plea was mentioned for urgent hearing before the division bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar.

The PIL was filed by advocate Amit Vyas who claimed that there are several irregularities and illegalities during the sale of tickets for major events, such as concerts, live shows and so on. He said such irregularities were witnessed in the sale of tickets for Coldplay on the BookMyShow platform. 

Vyas’ advocate informed the court that certain secondary websites are still selling tickets for Coldplay at exorbitant prices. The bench noted that a police inquiry on the same was on and the matter has been posted for hearing in November after the Diwali vacation.

The plea urged the court to lay down strict guidelines for prevention of black marketing, ticket touting and scalping of online tickets of such major events. The PIL claimed that such illegal means were rampant during ticket sales for IPL matches, world cup matches, Taylor Swift and Diljit Dosanjh concerts.prevention of black marketing, ticket touting and scalping of online tickets of such major events. 

"The sale of online tickets was apparently manipulated by BookMyShow platform in such a manner that even before mid-noon on the day the tickets were made available, people got logged out and were not allowed to access the website for purchase of tickets," the PIL alleged.

Tickets of all the three shows were sold out within minutes of listing on BookMyShow portal but tickets were later found on secondary websites at exorbitant prices.

"The Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 mandate e-commerce entities to ensure fair and non-deceptive practices. However, in the absence of effective regulations in the ticketing sector, entities such as BookMyShow are not complying with the rules," the PIL claimed.