Available or sold out? The strange behaviour of BookMyShow for World Cup tickets has puzzled fans. While tickets were “sold out” in minutes when the window opened for the first time, they were again made available with the BCCI & ICC releasing 400,000 more tickets. But now, the stadiums say something else. So far in ODI World Cup, stadiums have been almost half-empty. After backlash from fans on social media, BCCI have released 14000 more tickets for India vs Pakistan available on October 8. And as per BookMyShow website, more tickets for India World Cup games “to be available “Coming soon”.
“The BCCI announces the release of 14,000 tickets for the highly anticipated India v. Pakistan match to be held on October 14, 2023, at Ahmedabad.
The sale of tickets for the match will commence from 12 PM IST onwards on October 8th, 2023. Fans can purchase tickets by visiting the official ticketing website,”BCCI said in a statement.
While both times, World Cup tickets were sold out for the England vs New Zealand World Cup opener, the gigantic stadium could not even fill half the seats.
Empty stands
Similarly, a sold-out Pakistan vs Netherlands in Hyderabad also sported a deserted look at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Friday.
And the story continued in Dharamsala which has only 19,000 capacity. Around 30% of the seats were still empty during the Afghanistan vs Bangladesh match.
Back in Delhi, the story had no happy ending. For the South Africa vs Netherlands clash, around 40% of seats were unoccupied. It raises the question, how were the matches sold out on BookMyShow?
“Coming soon”
At present, for the opening India vs Australia clash, tickets are sold out in MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. However, people could still book World Cup tickets till Friday night.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan urged for free tickets for fans so that stands don’t look empty.
To make things worse, BookMyShow put up a “Coming soon” banner for 7 out of 9 India matches. That means tickets are available and it was a fault on their part in either communication or technology that many fans left empty-handed when it began selling tickets.
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