American music artist Taylor Swift is the gold standard for live concerts, generating billions of dollars in ticket sales and lifting local economies along the way.
Across the pond, British band Coldplay, fronted by Chris Martin, which travelled to India this January, is not doing too bad. Coldplay concerts in India boosted the economy, generated jobs and gave a big push to the country’s live events industry.
Economic impact: Viva la Vida
Coldplay’s Music Of The Spheres concerts generated business of Rs 641 crore across multiple industries, an analysis by Ernst & Young, released on April 30, shows.
Coldplay's World Tour included five concerts in India in January 2025, across Mumbai and Ahmedabad.
The tour kicked off on January 18 at the DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai, with two more shows at the same venue on January 19 and 21. The tour then moved to Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium, where the band performed on January 25 and 26.
Coldplay’s concerts in Ahmedabad, with over 222,000 attendees, were the largest in-stadium music concerts in the country, said Raghav Anand, Partner and Leader – Digital, Media and Convergence, EY-Parthenon.
The event injected Rs 392 crore into Ahmedabad’s economy through people's spending on accommodation, restaurants, transportation and shopping.
The event also contributed Rs 72 crore towards goods and services tax (GST). Local businesses witnessed a surge in customer footfall, with restaurants, hotels and transportation services reporting record revenues.
In addition, for every Rs 100 spent on a ticket, attendees contributed an additional Rs 585 towards services like hospitality, travel, local shopping and dining, creating a ripple effect, the EY analysis said.
During the concerts, flight prices surged, recording the highest average spend of Rs 18,912.
During the three-day event, the Ahmedabad airport handled 980 flights, welcoming 138,000 travellers.
The first day of the concert, January 25, marked the highest-ever single-day arrival at the Ahmedabad Airport with more than 47,000 passengers arriving in the Gujarat city, surpassing the previous record of 44,253 passengers in December 2024.
“The concert served as a major catalyst for demand, with bookings rising by nearly 69 percent across all modes of transportation on our platform—flights, buses, cabs and trains— compared to two weeks earlier," said Raj Rishi Singh Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Business Officer - Corporate, MakeMyTrip.
The most significant increase in transportation bookings was for cabs, which saw a 400 percent surge from the year-ago period.
Flight bookings rose 55 percent. Average selling prices across all modes of transportation also saw an upward trend.
Cabs and personal cars saw an average spend of Rs 10,466 and Rs 8,071, as trains and flights operated at full capacity, making road travel an alternate consideration for those travelling from nearby states, EY data shows.
On average, attendees spent Rs 1,260 on local transportation during their stay.
Magic for jobs
The concert generated significant employment opportunities, with around 15,000 personnel deployed across the shows. Out of the 15,000, 9,000 event staff were drawn from Ahmedabad.
Around 4,500 police personnel and safety staff were tasked with ensuring the concert's security, traffic and crowd management.
More than 400 student volunteers played key roles in event production, F&B operations, merchandise sales and sustainability initiatives.
Over 200 staff were deployed from various departments across government and local authorities including the Gujarat government and the Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA).
Over 700 personnel worked daily during the event, with 200 staff assigned to night shifts to ensure overnight readiness for the second show in the city.
Live events industry needed Something Just Like This
India’s concert economy saw significant growth in 2024 with around 70 to 80 concert days attracting audiences of 10,000 or more, Anad said.
He added that over the past few years, the organised live event segment has evolved at an impressive pace, surpassing the Rs 12,000 crore mark in 2024 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate(CAGR) of around 19 percent over the next three years.
Coldplay’s Music Of The Spheres Tour in Ahmedabad was a watershed moment, proving that India can host large-scale, globally benchmarked events on par with the best in the world, said Naman Pugalia, Chief Business Officer - Live Events, BookMyShow.
BookMyShow Live is the live entertainment experiential division of BookMyShow which organised the Coldplay concerts in India.
But this wasn’t an isolated high point, Pugalia said.
It marks the natural evolution of a journey that began with U2’s The Joshua Tree Tour in 2019, paused briefly during the pandemic and returned stronger than ever with global properties like Lollapalooza India across three editions, a six-city tour with Ed Sheeran and concerts by Maroon 5, Backstreet Boys, Post Malone, Westlife, The Chainsmokers and more, he added.
"The live entertainment industry has been on a steady upward trajectory and Coldplay simply brought that growth into sharper public and economic focus reaching a crescendo," Pugalia said.
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