Singapore Coldplay concert organisers said they are planning to release an additional 10,000 tickets for sale once it finalises layout and logistic issues on Nov 23 and Nov 24. This will be the fourth batch of tickets for the upcoming National Stadium show on April 1.
In the first three batches, about 40,000 Coldplay tickets were sold from Nov 17 to Nov 21. Live Nation Lushington, the concert organiser, and the band's management are both aware of the high demand that has resulted in an online petition to add a second show in Singapore.
Reports showed that scalpers started selling the tickets at 10 times the cost price after a few hours of the first batch of pre-sale tickets. Some tickets went up to $3,150 for Category 1 tickets, which are originally priced at $268.
The organiser said the band is aware of touts, who are trying to earn profit from the resale of tickets. "Even the band saw what happened, and said, 'Michael, we have to do something'," Michael Roche, the managing director of Live Nation Lushington, told The Straits Times.
According to him, Live Nation Lushington has apparently taken steps to invalidate some of the tickets, which were resold at inflated prices. But, he did not disclose the details of how the tracing was done.
This was the first time when Live Nation Lushington had to take such steps for its concert in Singapore. But, Roche, who is also the executive director of the Singapore Grand Prix, was seen taking similar actions against scalpers for the F1 races in the past. "It's the start of the tour so it's difficult to make a decision that quickly. We're looking at everything so let's just see what comes up in the next two days," Roche added.
Initially, the tickets were priced from $78 to $298. But, Roche said Coldplay had asked the organiser to keep the ticket prices low. "Our ticket prices were originally a little bit higher and they said no, move that price. They really care," Roche said.
He also added that he is aware of a recent BBC report where Roberto De Luca, the head of Live Nation Italy, admitted of selling a small number of tickets to online ticket resale website Viagogo. However, Roche stressed that Live Nation Lushington never engages in such practices.
