Indian Premier League 2019 is almost at the end of its season, as this Sunday, IPL will crown its new champion for the ongoing tournament. Fans are expecting to watch an action-packed final on May 12 in Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. However, it seems the fans are disappointed as the tickets for final was sold within minutes in an online platform.
Tickets sale in a Blink of an eye
On this Tuesday, there was an announcement made through a flyer stating, ‘Tickets go live today at 2 pm’, in less than two minutes the site showed that the tickets were sold out. By showing all tickets sold out on the online platform, there is a high possibility of offline sales leading to black-marketing.
However, the distribution was handed over to a private firm called Event Now. The tickets were priced at Rs 1,500, Rs 2,000, Rs 2,500 and Rs 5,000 which was unusual. Therefore, in general, it was supposed to be Rs 1000, Rs 1500, Rs 2000, Rs 2500, Rs 5000, Rs 10000, Rs 1000, Rs 12500, Rs 15000 and Rs 22500 for a common man.
Where did all the tickets go?
The Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad capacity is over 39,000. The finals were supposed to be played in Chennai but significantly, the venue of the IPL final was shifted from Chennai to Hyderabad after the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association failed to get three stands opened. With about 12,000 seats not available, it would have resulted in a huge loss.
Frustrated fans started raising questions like, what has happened to the tickets of the other rates? Where have they gone? Why wasn’t the ticket sale informed earlier?
In the meantime, an Event Now official tells TOI, “ I cannot give any details. We are selling tickets that have been given to us. It is BCCI who should give out the details; we are not authorized to do so.”