To put it very mildly, calling in the top brass at ‘bookmyshow.com’ to be investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for selling tickets to the Coldplay concert at inflated prices is a bit rich. Their time would be better spent looking elsewhere such as the scalping ecosystem. To begin understanding that, let’s consider what really happened.

There were hundreds of thousands of fans who wanted tickets to the concert. Everyone knew demand will be high and most assumed it will be fastest finger first when the booking window opens. Groups of friends had gotten together, their details filled in and armed with multiple devices. When the ‘gates’ opened, they assumed all they had to do was hit “Book”. But how were most of them to know they didn’t stand a chance against scalpers?

Scalping is a word that instantly sparks frustration for anyone who’s ever tried to buy tickets to a wildly popular concert. Just why does it happen that when you hit ‘purchase,’ the screen flashes “Sold Out.” It’s like the tickets vanished into thin air. Minutes later, they reappear — on resale sites, with prices that have exploded beyond reason. The culprit? Scalping.

Scalpers are modern-day vultures, swooping in at the precise moment of release, snatching tickets before the average fan even has a chance. They buy up tickets in bulk, only to resell them at sky-high prices. Think of these as the current day versions of black marketers who would linger outside a venue, murmuring “Tickets for sale”.

Huzefa Motiwala, director at the California-based Palo Alto Technologies explains that scalpers are armed with an invisible army of bots that can swarm websites. Between heavy demand from fans and bots, it was inevitable Bookmyshow’s site crash for a while. And when it got back again, scalpers snatched up what was left.

They are capable of bypassing many kinds of security measures and can buy out hundreds even thousands of tickets in a heartbeat. This was perhaps the first time Indian fans got a taste of what scalpers can do. A ₹5,000 ticket went up to ₹20,000 in minutes. And over time, it went through the roof.

The rise of scalping, turbocharged by technology, has turned ticket-buying into a ruthless game where the odds are stacked against regular fans. It’s no longer just a matter of being quick; you’re up against a machine. And when they control the supply, they control the price.

This isn’t just unfair, it’s a kind of theft—a theft of access, of joy, of the simple right to attend a concert or event without being extorted. Scalping doesn’t just make events expensive; it makes them exclusive, creating a divide between those who can afford the obscene prices and those who can’t. Fans, who once saw concerts as affordable experiences, now feel priced out, left watching from the sidelines as others snap up the inflated tickets.

Even worse, not all tickets sold by scalpers are genuine. There are darker forces at play—fraudsters who sell counterfeit or invalid tickets, leaving fans not only out of pocket but also heartbroken at the gates.

Governments in other countries, ticketing platforms, and event organizers have tried to fight back. Laws in some countries have cracked down on scalping, placing limits on the number of tickets one person can buy or capping resale prices. But the scalpers, ever adaptable, find new ways to circumvent these rules. Ticketing platforms have created systems like “verified fan” programs where real fans are supposed to get priority, but even these are vulnerable to manipulation. But this conversation hasn’t yet started in India.

What will help is to look at the future. The promise of technology offers some hope. Blockchain, a digital ledger, could hold the key to making tickets unique, trackable, and impossible to counterfeit. Imagine each ticket as a one-of-a-kind digital asset, impossible to clone, impossible to resell without leaving a trace. It’s an ambitious idea, but until then, scalpers will continue to dominate.

In the end, technology may have opened new doors for convenience, but it has also created new challenges, and scalping is one of the most painful. Fans deserve better than to be outwitted by bots or squeezed by profiteers. Investigating agencies such the ED will do well to focus their attention here.