Coldplay adds Jan 30 show after selling more than 200,000 tickets to 4 S'pore shows

British band Coldplay will add an unprecedented fifth show at the National Stadium on Jan 30 next year, in addition to its concert dates on Jan 23, 24, 26 and 27.

This, after more than 200,000 tickets to the band’s original four shows were sold on Monday, during the pre-sales period.

“The band also broke Singapore’s record for most tickets sold by an artist in a single day,” promoter Live Nation said on Monday.

Over a million virtual queue numbers were issued on Monday, though many people in the queue faced technical issues on the ticketing website.

Pre-sales on Monday started at 10am and were open to all who had signed up for Artiste presale and Live Nation presale.

General sales will start a day later, on Tuesday. Prices of the tickets range from $68 to $298.

Ticket buyers typically advance from the virtual queue to a page to select the date and preferred ticket category, before being directed to the payment page.

Ticket buyers can have multiple queue numbers if they access the pre-sale link from different devices, or have multiple accounts with the ticketing website.

Social media users complained of the long online queues to enter the Ticketmaster website, with some even noting that this was the first time they encountered a six-digit queue number. 

Others complained about how they got kicked out of the ticket selection page after refreshing it and were sent to the back of the virtual queue.

Twitter user Angela Cheong said that she managed to enter the ticket selection page twice, but was met with a “frozen screen” with “no links for purchase each time”.

Some were also stuck on a page with advertisements, and were not allowed to advance to buy their tickets.

One reddit user said that after exiting the virtual queue, she was redirected to a page that did not give her access to any tickets. Many users in the comments replied saying they were experiencing the same issue.

The demand for tickets is so hot that buyers on e-commerce marketplace Carousell are offering to sell their queue numbers for up to $50 per ticket.

Scalpers have already taken to Carousell to upsell their tickets. A listing seen by The Straits Times showed six standing tickets – originally sold for $168 per ticket – being resold for $500 each.

Another listing seen showed category 3 tickets going for as high as $850, more than three times the original price of $238.

ST has contacted the e-commerce platform for more information. Ticketmaster does not allow the reselling of tickets.

Authorised ticket reselling site Viagogo showed category 5 tickets being sold for up to $2,500, and category 2 tickets at $3,000. Originally, tickets were $168 and $268, respectively.

Organisers LiveNation said that it would like to caution the public against purchasing tickets from unauthorised sellers or third-party websites.

“By purchasing tickets through these non-authorised points of sale, buyers take on the risk that the validity of the tickets cannot be guaranteed, with no refunds possible,” LiveNation said.

Mr Lydon Ong told ST that he was hopeful initially as he was the 249,970th person in line. But after waiting 1½ hours for his tickets, the website froze for him.

He said: “The site remained grey for about 15 minutes before I got kicked out and had to re-queue again – this time I had a queue number of 800,000.”

However, the self-employed 26-year-old said that he was more than willing to re-queue because watching Coldplay perform live is on his bucket list.

“I grew up with Coldplay’s music and their songs really take me back to specific moments in my life, and their live shows also look too good to miss out on,” added Mr Ong, who eventually bought five tickets through a friend, after queueing for more than three hours.

“I definitely would not want to miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime experience, even if it means queueing up for another three hours.”

Another fan also endured a three-hour-long queue before she was kicked out, but she did not give up on getting tickets either.

Ms Renny Lee, a 24-year-old Singapore Management University student, told ST that when she first entered the queue, she was behind more than 600,000 others. After waiting three hours, she got kicked out of the ticketing site.

“I’ve been listening to Coldplay since I was in primary school, and it got me through so many highs and lows growing up,” the avid fan said.

“Despite the queue, I just have to get those tickets,” she added, who eventually got one ticket through a friend.

Malaysian fan Cassandra Teoh, 26, told ST that she failed to get tickets for Coldplay’s show in Kuala Lumpur, and thought she would stand a better chance in Singapore as the band is due to perform here for four nights.

Ms Teoh said that she wanted to get tickets because she might not get many opportunities to see them any more. She added that she is trying to get tickets for the Singapore stop.

Coldplay announced last week that it would perform at the National Stadium on Jan 23, 24, 26 and 27. They last performed in Singapore in 2017, when they rocked the National Stadium over two nights. Formed in London in 1997, the band has released a string of hits over the years, such as Yellow, Viva la Vida, A Sky Full of Stars, and Higher Power.

The announcement last week came after the band earlier sold out concerts Malaysia and Indonesia, among others. Concert promoters Live Nation also said last week that Chris Martin and Co. would be the first music act to play four nights at the National Stadium.

Similarly, fans also faced difficulties buying tickets for the band’s Malaysia concert, which were all snapped up within three hours when it went on general sale on May 17.

One buyer on Carousell in Malaysia offered to pay RM111,111 ($33,000) for the category 1 tickets, which originally cost RM1,288.