S Poddar
Frustrated fans of Coldplay’s eagerly anticipated 2025 UK tour were left in an uproar as tickets sold at high prices. What seemed to be the most infuriating part were the snail-paced ticket queues at Ticketmaster.
Just announced-a world tour from the legendary British band known for hits like “Fix You” and “Yellow,” which will bring it to London and Hull’s Craven Park next summer. The tour accompanies their much-awaited tenth album, Moon Music.
Pre-sale tickets for some of the limited shows scheduled at London’s Wembley Stadium in August 2025 became available through Ticketmaster on Thursday, September 26. This pre-sale has already given a few fans the head start ahead of the general sale, set to begin on Friday.
Most lucky fans who managed to get a chance into the presale received an email with a link to clarify the steps in purchasing tickets, including a code giving them head start. For many fans, excitement became very sour very quickly.
While logging onto Ticketmaster, some got stuck in queues, taking an entire night-sometimes even running into the next morning-and almost impossible to get tickets since demand was extremely high, leaving many disappointed as people had to be put in wait lines for too long.
One fan went to X (formerly known as Twitter) to express how sick it made them: “So, great idea – album pre-sale! So people can sign up for free and then be 109,443rd in the queue! How is that fair?!?!”
How do you find the third album sold for more?
Secondly, another fan opined on the same to say:
For instance, here is a story from an individual who was attempting to buy tickets online via the resale link on Ticketmaster’s Web site:
“I refreshed the resale link every second starting at 8:30 am so I could get into the waiting room. I entered at the first available at 9 am and there were still 140,000 in front of me. How does that even happen?”
But that was only one of the problems. Some fans said they were outraged by what they saw-that is, ticket prices running out of control;
“Had 900 people in queue in front of me. Went through finally and the only ticket available was £192. What a joke! What happened to the £53 tickets? @Ticketmaster is a rip-off.”
Things only got worse. It was ominous that people were already offering tickets on secondary ticketing websites at highly inflated prices. Fans, posting on social media shortly after the presales opened, shared screenshots showing prices of outrageous tickets posted on Viagogo and other sites. A ticket to the London show would be going for £1,327; a massive markup.
These issues have rekindled long-held criticisms of Ticketmaster and the ticketing process for large events. Fans have been expressing frustration that tickets, once seemed impossibly out of reach when purchased directly from the horses’ mouths, flit onto resale platforms to sell at a markup.
The UK tour of Coldplay is one of the most awaited events during this summer. Tickets have been as hard to come by as a crystal on Saturn, and it’s pretty obvious that the demand is overwhelming. Having seen the experience so far, however, fans have, on the whole been somewhat disappointed because of process issues, long queues, and pricing.
Fans are set to face another round of difficulties as the general sale for the concert nears. Hopefully, more people might get their tickets without having to go through what they did in the presale. However, a light drizzle on the impervious enthusiasm surrounding the tour remains one thing-high demand and resale- -that casts a dark and ominous shadow.
