Coldplay fever grips Singapore as all concert tickets sell out
(Update at 3.30pm on 21 November: Live Nation Lushington issued a press release on the ticket numbers and clarified about access to the ticketing system.)
Just like the title of Coldplay’s second album, the feverish anticipation for the UK band’s upcoming Singapore concert has been sending a rush of blood to the heads of fans as all tickets for the general public were sold out within 90 minutes on Monday (21 November) after they were released at 10am.
In total, including the allocated tickets that were sold on previous days, concert promoter Live Nation Lushington said on Monday that over 40,000 tickets have been taken up. Tickets for the concert range from $78 to $298.
Calling it a “never-before-seen response”, Live Nation Lushington said the Sports Hub Tix hotline and website had close to 20,000 unique users trying to dial in or access the ticketing site on Monday. Hundreds of walk-in patrons had queued, some overnight, at the Indoor Stadium main Box Office and SingPost outlets, it added.
“Within 10 minutes of the public sale, all ticket inventory had either been snapped up or held in the online shopping carts while the customers completed their payment transactions,” Live Nation Lushington said.
The promoter also clarified that its ticketing system did not crash, saying that it “simply could not open up inventory to those (thousands) waiting in the queue system as the tickets were either being transacted or held pending payment clearance.”
Due to the overwhelming demand for the band’s concert on 1 April 2017 at the National Stadium, Live Nation Lushington are in discussions with the relevant parties to release more tickets.
In a post on Facebook on Monday at 11.30am, Live Nation Lushington said it is confident that it can “open up a little more inventory in the coming days to cope with the very significant demand”.
Live Nation Lushington added it hopes to announce any additional capacity that it can offer for sale by Wednesday or Thursday.
The frenzy for the hottest concert tickets in town began on Thursday when all 12,000 pre-sale tickets, which were allocated for Citibank credit-card holders, were snapped up in under an hour after they were released for purchase online.
Similarly, all tickets allocated for Live Nation Lushington’s mailing list subscribers on Sunday were sold out quickly.
The demand has led to tickets being offered on e-commerce sites like Carousell at inflated prices, with some going for more than $1,000.
Live Nation Lushington has warned Coldplay fans not to buy tickets from resellers.
“We will also continue to curtail the secondary tickets being sold at inflated prices. We have since voided a number of tickets found on the resale market as this contravenes our terms and conditions of sale.
“We would like to urge all fans to refrain from purchasing tickets through unauthorised resellers as these may have already been voided and holders will be denied access to venue.”
A petition calling for a second concert by Coldplay in Singapore has been set up by a fan shortly after Live Nation Lushington announced the tickets for the general public were sold out.
Last Monday, Coldplay fans were treated to a teaser video posted on social media to promote the band’s “A Head Full of Dreams” tour, which listed a number of concert stops around the world including Singapore.
Managing director of Live Nation Lushington, Michael Roche, described the ticket demand for Coldplay’s concert as “unprecedented”, saying that the only other time that a similar demand was seen in Singapore was during Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous Tour” in 1993, according to a report on Friday by the Straits Times. Jackson thrilled close to 100,000 fans over two days of his sold-out concerts at the old National Stadium.
