A Sky Full Of Stars And A Sea Of Fans — How Coldplay Pulled Off A Mini Taylor Swift In Ahmedabad

You didn't need to be a hardcore Coldplay fan to have felt the impact of their largest-ever concert held at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat over the weekend. The biggest city in Gujarat was swarmed by Coldplay fans and attendees from across India and this gave the city's tourism business a fillip akin to a 'Swiftonomics' moment.

For the uninitiated, Taylor Swift's Eras tour last year is estimated to have contributed $4.3 billion to the economy of the United States alone, according to Bloomberg Economics.

Closer home, the hype around the Coldplay concert left several unassuming Amdavadis flummoxed. The city was flooded with visitors who flew in from various parts of the country, causing a surge in the prices of flights and hotel tariffs. The visitors thronged the city's tourist spots and were seen shopping for trinkets at Law College Road as well as tasting local favourites at Manek Chowk.

Ticket sales comprised among the largest spends by customers. The Narendra Modi Stadium, with a capacity of over 1.3 lakh people was host to a full house of Coldplay fans on both days. Fans who were lucky enough to snag tickets through Bookmyshow paid anywhere between Rs 2,000 to Rs 35,000 while those who snagged tickets via resellers paid anywhere between Rs 6,000 to closer to over a lakh.

With approximately 80% concert attendees said to be outsiders, spending on travel, accommodation and food saw a surge.

Flights from and to Mumbai that usually cost about Rs 2,500 saw a 10X surge. While trains were sold out, bus operators too were selling tickets at double the usual price, i.e. a ticket from Mumbai to Ahmedabad cost approximately Rs 4,000 in the two days leading up to the concerts.

A localite complained of having to shift dates for their twin grand children's naming ceremony after relatives and friends complained that did not want to pay such exorbitant prices to travel to the city.

Hotels such as the Taj Skyline in Ahmedabad showed three times as much tariff for Sunday as did for the same day a week later. With hotel tariffs shooting up, many Amdavadis were subjected to house guests they hadn't invited.

I was lucky enough to stay with my grandmother's sister who was ruing about how her kitty had to be cancelled because another friend was hosting a family of five from Kolkata for the concert and had no bandwidth for the party.

While Manek Chowk saw a surge in visitors flocking to snack on sandwiches, dosas and jamun shots post the concerts, popular eating joint Swati Snacks ended up adding extra tables outside the restaurant to the cater to the surge in visitors.

Staff at Shangar Art and Craft — the store next door stocking swoon worthy Kutch handicrafts, said that they saw a non-stop influx of walk-ins since Thursday, with cheaper stalls opposite the store on Law College Road, seeing footfalls rivalling those during Navratri.

The roads leading up to the stadium on concert days, saw small-time vendors selling cheap merchandise, while general store owners close to the stadium tried their best to make an extra buck by offering to store luggage for a fee while selling the usuals. Inside the stadium, the gig economy at work was hard to miss.

Young college students were happy to make a quick buck with their colleges offering paid gigs in collaboration with Bookmyshow to help guide visitors to the seats around the largest ever cricket stadium in the world. Food stalls included Dominos Pizza, Wow momos, Burger king, Redbull and soft drinks, along with hundreds of hawkers selling already inflated food items at even steeper markups, putting even modern multiplexes to shame.

In all, assuming average spend of Rs 20,000 by an one lakh unique visitors to the city, overall spending for those travelling to the city for the concert can be estimated to have been upwards of Rs 400 crore.

In an earlier note, Dipanwita Mazumdar and Jahnavi Prabhakar, economists at the Bank of Baroda estimate a push to spending ranging from around Rs 1,600-2,000 crore in the span of last two-three months, from the announcement of a string of concerts in the country amidst a fast burgeoning consumption economy. While not a large number even in sum total, if looked at an annualized basis, it can provide the desired impact on private consumption demand, the economists argue.

The backward and forward linkages of the events are also widespread from manufacturing (for improved logistics) and services sector to flourishing of gig economy, they add.