Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Coachella
A few weeks ago, Delhi’s resale market for Travis Scott tickets was on fire. Gold passes were being quoted at double their face value, fans were panicking in group chats, and resale DMs were buzzing with absurd offers. Now, just days before the show, those same tickets are selling at a lower price than MRP. What was once a feeding frenzy has become a clearance sale — and the mood says a lot about how India’s live music ecosystem still doesn’t know how to handle real demand.
On Instagram, posts that once bragged about “sold-out” blocks now read like desperate classifieds. Sellers are offloading Silver tickets for lower than the ₹8,537 MRP. Gold and VIP sections, too, have seen steep markdowns. Many are “selling at cost” or “no profit,” trying to recover something before the clock runs out. Some listings even bundle two or three tickets together just to find a buyer. The energy that once screamed exclusivity now feels eerily like liquidation. Entire Instagram pages and Subreddits have sprung up solely to sell or trade Travis Scott tickets, functioning like pop-up marketplaces where posts are updated hourly with new prices, screenshots, and desperate DMs. It’s a clear sign of how the resale economy has embedded itself into concert culture. “I bought a bunch of tickets with my friends the day they went live because we thought they’d sell out instantly,” says Avit Mehta, a 28-year-old Scott fan from Ahmedabad. “But now half the group has cancelled, travel plans fell apart, and I’m just stuck with extra tickets I can’t get rid of. At this point, I’d be happy if someone even takes them off my hands for ₹3,000 — it’s better than letting them go to waste.”
Part of what triggered this collapse was a misstep from BookMyShow Live itself. The promoter’s decision to announce the Mumbai show weeks after the Delhi dates completely threw the market off balance. Fans who had panic-bought tickets for Delhi suddenly realized they could just wait to see Scott in Mumbai, while resellers who’d stocked up, hoping to cinch a neat profit, were left scrambling to recover costs. Overnight, prices began to slide, and the sense of urgency that had fueled Delhi’s resale boom evaporated. What could’ve been a seamless national rollout turned into a confusion spiral — one that exposed how poor communication and staggered announcements can sabotage even the biggest live music moments.
But to be honest, the easy take is to blame the sellers. The truth is, this isn’t just panic selling — it’s the fallout of a market that’s still catching up to sustain itself. When the first wave of tickets dropped, demand was real, but speculation was louder. People bulk-bought, confident they could flip their tickets for profit, assuming every fan in the city would pay any price to see Scott. Platforms didn’t cap transfers or monitor bulk purchases, and resale channels multiplied across WhatsApp groups, Telegram chats, and Subreddits. What started as excitement quickly turned into an unregulated stock market-like situation, powered entirely by fear of missing out.
Now, the correction is here.
India’s live calendar right now is already overflowing — John Mayer, John Batiste, Rolling Loud India, Post Malone, Enrique Iglesias, and several major festivals are all lined up within weeks of each other. It’s peak season, but also peak exhaustion for fans trying to keep up. Many have to pick and choose which shows to attend, with travel, stay, and ticket costs quickly piling up. Compared to abroad, where average concert tickets range between $60–$150 (₹5,000–₹12,000) for global acts, Indian tickets often fall in the same bracket — but without the same earning power or infrastructure. A ₹10,000 ticket in Mumbai or Delhi feels far heavier on the pocket than the same amount would in New York or London. The economics don’t scale the same way, and fans are starting to feel it. The same social media that amplified hype is now exposing how fragile that hype really was. As sellers undercut each other, resale prices are dropping faster than they ever rose.
It’s not entirely bad news. The fall in resale prices means fans who missed the first drop can finally afford to go. But it also exposes how unregulated and chaotic the system is. Every resale cycle — from Coldplay to Ed Sheeran to now Scott — plays out the same way: panic, scalping, and eventual underselling. There’s still no official resale window, no verified ticket exchange, no dynamic pricing or refund mechanism that protects both sides. Instead, fans are left to gamble in DMs, hoping the QR code they buy actually scans at the gate.
For promoters and ticketing platforms, this is a wake-up call. A healthy live market can’t thrive on speculation. It needs transparent resale systems, transfer limits, verified ownership changes, and published data on ticket flow. Fans deserve a fair shot to buy and resell tickets without being forced into black markets or taking blind risks. And sellers need rules that allow them to offload unused tickets without being treated as scalpers.
If there’s one takeaway from this whole mess, it’s that hype isn’t the same as demand. A market built on anticipation, not access, will always collapse under its own weight. Scott’s first India show should’ve been about music history — not a week-long lesson in economics.
Travis Scott will perform in India this year, with back-to-back shows on Oct. 18 and 19 at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, followed by a Mumbai stop on Nov. 19 at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse.
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