Unplugged Realities: Coldplay, Ticket Prices, and Social Discord in India

As anticipation mounts for one of the world's most renowned bands to grace our shores, a chilling truth lingers beneath the surface—a truth etched in the exorbitant price tags dangling from each coveted ticket. Coldplay, a British rock band formed in the year 1997, till date it has received seven Grammy awards. The band has one of the best-selling music acts and has 100 million albums sold worldwide. The global rock sensation Coldplay will travel to India in January 2025, and this tour will take place after a gap of 9 years. Mumbai in the year 2016 saw the last performance on the eve of the Global Citizen Festival. In 2025, DY Patil Stadium will witness a lineup that includes Chris Martin, Will Champion, Jonny Buckland, and Guy Berryman. The announcement about the show instantly grabbed attention, and an inestimable crowd lined up in the virtual queue on the BookMyShow platform to grab a single chance to  avail tickets for the concert. People are passionately waiting for their turn, taking screenshots of their grand attempt to avail of tickets. They were frustrated and clueless when the BookMyShow's website and app became unresponsive. Conversely, ‘blessed fans’ were delirious on social media to express their happiness after getting the ticket.

Contextualizing concerts' role in economic aspects has been the subject of study. Andy Haldane, the former chief economist at the Bank of England, has written an article titled “What Taylor Swift and Oasis can teach us about the economy”. Haldane’s work offers detailed interventions on the economic contribution of music tours. The soaring concert tickets of Coldplay have compelled me to look around the socio-economic landscape in India. In India’s economy, there has been a significant leap in the post-independence space; however, being one of the fastest-growing major economies worldwide, income inequality remains a significant challenge. The Distributional National Accounts (DINA) project at the World Inequality Lab (WIL) aims to rigorously estimate inequality dynamics in various countries using various data sources. 

While referring to the working paper published in the “World Inequality Lab” titled “Income and Wealth Inequality in India, 1922-2023: The Rise of the Billionaire Raj”, authors highlighted that in 2022-23, “top 1% income and wealth shares are at their highest historical levels at 22.6% and 40.1% respectively and India’s top 1% income share is among the very highest in the world, higher than even South Africa, Brazil and US”. The disproportionate gap in terms of income equality leads to a cacophonic space towards society and government. The government has implemented programs like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which provides a legal guarantee for 100 days of employment in every financial year to adult members of a rural household, and the Public Distribution System (PDS), which aims to provide food security to the poor, to overcome this issue. However, challenges such as inadequate infrastructure, unequal access to education and healthcare, and the prevalence of the informal economy persist.

Coming into the debates and discussions associated with the anxiousness of attending live concerts. Coldplay’s concert is a crucial reflection where artists' performances have gained spectacularity, and listening to their live concert has led to the rise of the YOLO (you only live once) sentiment. This sentiment, often associated with a desire to seize unique experiences, has been amplified by the advent of social media and the phenomenon of extreme FOMO (fear of missing out). This is a form of anxiety where people are grappling with emotions of missing out

on attending a concert. To further understand the euphoric experience of elatedness, market forces and psychological ops play a determinant role in upsurging this hype. Fans attend these costly concerts not only for entertainment but also to rejoice in the experience of social status, exclusivity, and the promise of a distinction from the masses. Taylor Swift’s Loyalty Fan Card is one example that provides its fans with a sense of social status and exclusivity when they join the Swiftie club; it also has a deep connection with identity politics. In BBC, Mark Savage and Charlotte McDonald have written an article titled, “Why do concert tickets now cost as much as a games console?”, which offers detailed insight into the factors associated with mounting figures. To dive deeper into the economic modalities of performance-driven industry, it is vital to refer to the work of Alen Krueger and Marie Connolly from Princeton University. They offered a noted scholarly piece, “Rockonomics: The Economics of Popular Music”. The study provides entry points of trends and economic aspects of the rock and roll industry. The academic
intervention helps to understand popular music and associated factors, such as revenue, ticket market, and technological change.

The frenzy for Coldplay tickets has a significant sense of social discord. On the one hand, it creates a cluttered space, signifying an increasing consumption story and rising autonomy in affording premiumised choices. On the other hand, it also signifies the chains of economic hardship shackled by the grip of income inequality. This division, starkly highlighted by the concert, should remind us of the urgent need to prioritize inclusivity in our society.