Amid Coldplay Concert Frenzy, Throwback To When Michael Jackson Sold Out Mumbai Show In 1996

The Coldplay Concert frenzy took over the internet, and how. As soon as the tickets for the British band went live on September 22, fans flocked to BookMyShow to get their hands on the tickets for January 18,19, 2025 despite long digital queues. The demand was so high, that Coldplay announced another show in the city on January 21, 2025.

While the entire nation was privy to this manic sale, courtesy of the internet and social media, it is less known that the concert frenzy for international artists in India is now new. It was Michael Jackson who, like several other domains, changed the ball game here as well.

When Michael Jackson sold out concerts before the digital era 

The king of pop performed his only live show in India on November 1, 1996. This was an era before the internet, digital payments and smartphones. Michael Jackson's concert in India sold out like hotcakes and the singer played to a packed audience of approximately 35000 patrons.

The cost of the tickets was not modest even then. Spots at the concert went for upto ₹5000 (which was steep for that time), and the show is reported to have made a profit of $1 million (staggering for that time). Interestingly, the 17-song concert was made tax-free by the government and Jackson even let go of his performance fees for charitable causes.

What made the concert more special was that the King Of Pop replicated modern-day frenzy in a time where people would have to line up in actual queues rather than waiting for a ticket on their screens. Upon his arrival in Mumbai (then Bombay), the Thriller hitmaker was greeted by more than 5000 fans at the airport. Jackson himself went to Dharavi, Mumbai's slim area, to greet underprivileged kids. A select group of 50 people was chosen for a tight meet and greet wherein Bollywood stars, businessmen and politicians waited in line for a mere handshake with the singer. As Anupam Kher described it in one of his archival posts, "It was a historic moment."

Coldplay Mumbai concert tickets sell out within minutes

The British rock band Coldplay is set to perform in Mumbai next year in January. The ticket sale for their upcoming concert went live on Sunday and sold out within minutes with many fans of the band left hanging. The ticketing platform, BookMyShow crashed owing to the huge traffic. Later, the ticketing platform announced the addition of a third day to their concert in India. If the sell-out tickets weren’t enough, the clever marketing gimmick of adding the third day, gave a huge boost to the buzz around the concert. The Google trends show the search for ‘Coldplay’ peaking twice during the day, first at 12:10 pm on Sunday followed by a smaller spike at around 1:45 pm. The highest search traffic came from Goa , Maharashtra and Karnataka, in that order.

In no time, memes based on the sell-out of the concert within minutes made their way to social media healing the fans who couldn’t grab a ticket as they found solace in self-deprecating humour. From 35, 000 during the Michael Jackson concert to a crowd of 80, 000 at Coldplay’s last concert in Mumbai in 2016, the average Indian has come quite far and is willing to burn a hole in their pocket just for an instant burst of dopamine, social media clout or purely for the love of craft, perhaps.

(With inputs from IANS)