BookMyShow, Zomato And India’s Concert Mania

A few weeks ago, we asked whether Zomato overpaid for Paytm Insider and the ticketing business in the INR 2,048 Cr deal. Since then, we may have seen the first signs of why the acquisition was such a big deal, and why Zomato is looking to take on BookMyShow.

First, Zomato was in the spotlight for Diljit Dosanjh’s ‘Dil-luminati Tour – India’, which was sold out in a matter of minutes, resulting in the tickets being resold on scalping websites. This was followed by Zomato’s only major rival in the ticketing space now, BookMyShow coming under fire for a similar incident involving ‘Coldplay: Music Of The Spheres World Tour’.

Thanks to these incidents, the online ticketing space is getting unprecedented attention from all corners. Many blame BookMyShow and Zomato for not conducting sales in a more transparent manner, and now there’s a legal mess that both companies have to wade through.

Is this a new dawn in the Indian live events space? Let’s find out, but first, a look at the top stories from our newsroom this month.

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• Quick Fashion: Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart have changed grocery ecommerce in India forever, and now Bengaluru-based Slikk believes it can bring the same magic to the fashion category with a quick commerce platform. Will this new model take off?

Gold Rush For BookMyShow, Zomato

It’s important to understand the sequence of events before we look at how Zomato and BookMyShow could tackle the rush for live events going forward.

On September 24, two days after tickets for the Coldplay concerts went live on BookMyShow, the platform filed a police complaint about unauthorised resale of tickets or scalping for its exclusive concert. Reliance-backed BookMyShow clarified that it had no affiliations with ticket reselling platforms such as Viagogo, Gigsberg, or any other third-party individuals involved in the unauthorised sale of Coldplay concert tickets.

The Mumbai-based company was looking to dodge allegations of fixing the sale of tickets such that scalpers would benefit. However, those in the industry believe this is a far-fetched notion. “No one benefits from scalping. Not the government nor the platforms nor the actual buyer. This is only great for those who are looking to make a quick buck and this is thoroughly banned in India, unlike in the US, where scalping is allowed with certain limits,” according to one of our sources in the industry.

For instance, in the US, many venues enforce private property rules to clamp down on scalping in the vicinity of the concert, but nothing stops anyone from reselling online.

On its part, BookMyShow condemned scalping and emphasised that such activities are punishable under Indian law, and it also pledged to cooperate with authorities in any investigation related to scalping of the Coldplay tickets.

For many of those who were in the waitlist for the Coldplay concerts, it was a double blow. Just a few days before BookMyShow, a similar rush was seen on Zomato. Tickets for the Dil-Luminati tour had sold out in a short time but were later spotted on secondary platforms at inflated prices.

Originally, the tickets were priced from INR 12,999; however, they were listed on Viagogo for as much as INR 53,000 or 4X the original price. In some cases, tickets for both these shows were being sold for over INR 3 Lakh.

Zomato issued a formal notice to Viagogo for selling tickets without authorisation, and the company filed multiple cyber crime complaints against other scalping or secondary sales sites, as per sources.

In both cases, the sudden rush for tickets seemingly overwhelmed the platforms, causing them to crash temporarily, leading to more public outcry, as even those ahead in the waitlist could not get the tickets.

In wake of the controversy, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police has summoned BookMyShow’s parent entity Big Tree Entertainment’s CEO Ashish Hemrajani and the company’s technical head for questioning.

The summons was issued after a complaint was filed by lawyer Amit Vyas, who alleged that BookMyShow enabled scalping and secondary sale of tickets, while deceiving the public.

What makes this worse is that reports indicate that tickets began appearing on third-party sites even before the official sale had gone live, which not only shows a lapse in the distribution process but also gives credence to the possibility that many of these scalpers were running scams. In fact, BookMyShow clearly warned users of scams being run in the name of tickets for the Coldplay show. 

Scalpers Make Bank

“Some artists definitely generate this kind of frenzy. If you remember, Coldplay’s previous concert in Mumbai in 2016 also faced similar issues, where tickets, originally priced between INR 5,000 to INR 20,000, were resold at exorbitant rates, Scalpers are getting smarter and deploying bots to buy large batches of tickets in seconds,” said an industry insider and former CXO of an events and movie ticketing platform.

Whether it is Ed Sheeran’s Divide Tour or Justin Bieber or other electronic dance music (EDM) artists, this is a consistent trend in India. A large reason for this is that India does not have any permanent venues for concerts. In India, cricket stadiums are typically repurposed for concerts and that makes it much harder to get a proper idea of the demand.

In many cases, organisers have multiple plans ready to accommodate the demand. “They can reduce the size of the venue for the audience and put more focus on the stage, or they can reduce the stage and add more people into the venue. It would be better managed and there would be better visibility for the demand if we had permanent concert venues,” the former CXO added.

There could be other tech-led solutions to stop scalping. For instance, one could monitor IP addresses and restrict sales if there is a big spike from a cluster of related IP addresses, but this is a technical problem in India where most ISPs route traffic through hubs such as Pune or Gurugram.

Another option is linking sales to mobile numbers and permitting only those with the right ID card to enter the venue. But this is a logistical nightmare given just how difficult it would be to manage thousands of ID checks at the gate.

Having non-transferable tickets is also not an ideal solution. One source close to the Zomato Live operations told us, “How do you ensure that those buying tickets actually show up to the concert? We don’t want a situation where tickets cannot be transferred and very few people show up for the concert.”

Can BookMyShow, Zomato Fight Back?

So what can platforms do? For one, Paytm Insider let users transfer their ticket to another individual free of charge. But this does not completely stop scalping.

Zomato is trying something similar with its ‘Book Now, Sell Anytime’ feature, which lets users 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’ featuring Dua Lipa.

Incidentally, Lipa’s concert was also criticised for not being an open process, providing early access to some credit card holders. Do such deals make it seem like platforms are acting out of bad faith?

“We cannot completely stop tie-ups with financial partners because they are making it easier for many users to actually attend these concerts. One of the secular trends driving the rise of live events is the easier access to short-term credit through BNPL and similar options,” added the Zomato Live insider quoted above.

The other major trend is that live events and experiences have roared back after the pandemic which has certainly given BookMyShow and now Zomato a major boost. Similar to the travel sector, Indians are willing to go the extra mile to get a taste of these experiences that were out of reach for three to four years.

Plus, it’s no longer enough for people to aspire to attend a Coldplay show, but the fact is that a lot of online ‘clout’ is built around being seen at these concerts and events. Social media credentials and conversations are built around these experiences and younger Indians are certainly not going to miss out on the opportunity.

Both BookMyShow and Zomato indicated that they were exploring solutions to stop scalping, but this may not be easy as we have highlighted above. “We implemented a queueing system to manage the overwhelming demand and addressed issues caused by suspicious and malicious traffic within minutes, causing a brief delay, but ensuring minimal disruption for genuine fans. Due to the unprecedented demand, a third Mumbai show was added shortly thereafter, which also received a fantastic response,” a BMS spokesperson told Inc42.

India Shows Its Appetite

But a cursory search for scalping and TicketMaster (US-based ticketing giant) would make it plain as day — this problem has not been solved even by those who have experienced it for decades. BookMyShow added a third Coldplay show in India to appease fans, but tickets for those too were sold out in a matter of minutes.

Speaking of Coldplay’s third concert, another industry insider, said this is a game-changing moment for Indian events. We talk about premiumisation as a trend in the D2C category, and that’s pretty much true for live events too.  “I can’t remember the last international artist who did more than one show here. Covid has been an insane trigger, and the numbers have exploded. This is why we are seeing this frenzy today. It’s not about the concert, it’s about status signalling, it’s about the aspirational nature of the Indian consumer.”

And there’s also a silver lining here. Those in the industry say this gold rush pretty much puts India on the global live events map, if that wasn’t the case before. So for those who didn’t grab that Diljit or Coldplay ticket, there’s a lot more to come.

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