My friend visited a Coldplay concert in Gothenburg this month, and during the concert, the lead singer of Coldplay asked if there were anyone from Finland in the audience. There were indeed many. As the newspapers later wrote, during Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres tour in Sweden, Coldplay had hinted that they might be coming to Finland as well. Read on to find out how I got a ticket to their concert –
A few days after the Gothenburg concert, we read in the newspapers that Coldplay was indeed coming to Finland, with the date set for July 28, 2024. What a great piece of news, I thought – it might be time to go celebrate the best Coldplay songs live. I still had fresh memories of Ed Sheeran’s jam-packed and visually stunning concert at the Olympic Stadium, which turned me into a genuine fan of Ed Sheeran.
Tickets for the Coldplay concert went on presale on Tuesday of this week, and you had to register on Coldplay’s fan page for this. I don’t know if I was late or what was wrong, but I was only able to subscribe to the Coldplay newsletter on Sunday. How others got the code for presale tickets remained a mystery to me.
On Tuesday, July 25, presale tickets for the Coldplay concert sold out in a flash. A friend of mine managed to get a ticket after a 40-minute wait, but due to various ambiguities, the ticket purchase process took her about four hours in total. Surprisingly, Coldplay announced two additional shows for Helsinki during the presale, on the 30th and 31st on July 2024. However, to my horror, I later read in the press that up to 80% of concert tickets had been sold to fans in advance. Fans were considered those who had been able to register as fans on Coldplay’s own website.
On Wednesday, July 26, at 9 a.m., the second presale for the Coldplay concert began, this time among those registered on the LiveNation website. That site warned that there weren’t a large number of tickets available. However, at 9 a.m., I managed to click myself into the ticket shop via LiveNation. I got into the queue for the ticket shop and around 10 minutes past 9, I got to select tickets. I tried to buy three tickets, but only one or two tickets at a time could be purchased. Once I was even able to put a ticket in the shopping cart, but after waiting for a minute, about ⅓ of the queue time, the program kicked me out to the previous point, and no tickets were available anymore.
I spent a full four hours trying to get a ticket in advance, but to no avail. I refreshed the pages, and every few minutes the ticket service showed that one random ticket had been put on sale, but I never managed to buy them. Tickets were never available again. I was disappointed in how difficult it was to get tickets for myself and a friend. Coldplay seemed to favor only solo travelers, not group fans. My first experience of buying a presale ticket was therefore a very frustrating experience.
Even though the presale for the Coldplay concert was a frustrating experience, I didn’t get completely discouraged, as the official ticket sale was only starting today, Friday, July 28, at 10 a.m. I was used to the fact that before I started travel blogging 18 years ago, I used to be on hold on the phone just on the day when ticket sales began, and only then, to get tickets for concerts of my favorite artists at the time, such as Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Prince. Buying a ticket online could be more enjoyable than hanging on the phone lines, and even though I was wondering how few tickets were left for the actual ticket sale day, I still believed that it might be possible to get a ticket on Friday as well. After all, my friend had also managed to get a ticket from the presale.
A fourth concert in Helsinki for Coldplay!
And then, on the eve of the actual ticket sale day, Thursday, July 27, Coldplay announces the fantastic news that they will be doing a fourth concert in Helsinki. That day would be Saturday, July 27, 2024, and it would be Coldplay’s very first concert in Finland. So there would be a total of four concerts: 27th, 28th, 30th, and 31st of July 2024, and all tickets would be on sale from 10 a.m. on Friday.
So, I woke up early today, Friday, and logged into the Ticket Service. I clicked on the upcoming Coldplay concerts, but nothing happened before 10 o’clock. I may have refreshed the pages, I don’t remember, but refreshing may have been a mistake because at 9:59, when ticket sales started, I clicked on the sale button and ended up in a queue to get to the ticket shop. And that queue lasted a long time, much longer than it had lasted the day before yesterday. It wasn’t until about 20 minutes of waiting that I was finally able to access the ticket shop and there were hardly any tickets available. At this point, my friend’s friend had managed to buy herself three tickets, already at 9:05.
In the pre-sale, the day before yesterday, I had been desperate enough to click on random special tickets that were about to go on sale, the price of which ranged between 260-390 euros, and these would have included a concert ticket in addition to a Coldplay wristband and some other fan product. I didn’t care about fan merchandise, as I just wanted a ticket or two, but it seemed impossible. With a special ticket for about 990 euros, I would have gotten access to a lounge, a Coldplay concert photo exhibition, and even the opportunity to photograph the band itself, but that was beyond my pain threshold. That was also the current price of a plane ticket to India, or a one month’s rent in Helsinki.
I was refreshing the Ticket Service page and wondering how the concert tickets that had just gone on sale simply evaporated in fractions of a second. Several times the tickets I wanted were already in my shopping cart, and I queued to pay for them, but in vain, as the program just spat me out and claimed that there were no tickets available. And finally, when the only options left were dynamic concert tickets, I started clicking on them out of frustration, even though the price at worst was up to around 390 euros.
And then – ouch! I got a dynamic ticket in my shopping bag. And eventually from the purchase queue I also got to swipe my credit card. The Ticket Service gave me about 18 minutes time to complete the credit card transaction. It was chilling to pay 400 euros for one single Coldplay concert ticket, which wasn’t even in a particularly good location and didn’t include any fan products or wristbands, like the special tickets did. I would be just getting a seat, the original price of which would have been around 171 euros. Also I know that the seats in Olympic stadium are not comfortable to sit on for long as your buttocks numb in them, and anyways I would have to stand over there to see something behind the dancing fans in front of me. But because my other friend, who started ticket hunting at the same time as me, hadn’t even gotten into the ticket shop from the queue, I made the bold choice and bought a Coldplay dynamic concert ticket with several hundred euros.
After this I tried to get a concert ticket for my friend as well, but in vain. I couldn’t get any ticket to the shopping cart anymore, and finally, after I had refreshed the page for a while, the program threw me out and I had to queue again to get inside the ticket shop. When I finally got back into the ticket shop after a long time queuing, the program threw me out again and a new queue began.
Three hours passed and I was still in the queue for to the Ticket Shop. The queue has progressed one third of the full time. And my friend, who started the Coldplay concert ticket purchase same time as me, at 10 o’clock, got inside the Ticket Service shop only after queuing for 3h 40 minutes, but in vain, as all tickets were gone.
Coldplay testing friendships
So, despite my initial difficulties, I was able to secure a ticket for the first ever Coldplay concert in Helsinki, Finland. My emotions ran high; it was like I’d just scored a victory in a tough battle. And in some ways, it was a battle — one against time, technology, and the thousands of other eager fans all chasing for a ticket.
Looking back at this experience, it was a mix of emotions. On one hand, I felt disheartened by the ticketing system’s complexities and the seemingly impossible task of securing a ticket. On the other hand, the triumph of finally getting a ticket made it all worthwhile. But at what price – over double the price! In addition, I’m sad that I have to go alone to a concert to listen to Coldplay and Music of the Spheres.
Something should be done to renew the digital ticket selling system – How about one queue for one ticket loners and another queue for two or more tickets purchase with friends, for example.
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