When Amrita Kaur decided to attend Punjabi pop star Diljit Dosanjh’s concert in India this month, she was prepared to experience some discomfort.
Having attended several concerts in the past, Ms Kaur was looking forward to the “exciting chaos” that comes with large crowds at big events in India.
But what awaited her was much worse than she had imagined.
Crowd control was minimal and sanitation was non-existent. Congested mobile networks stopped working, raising concerns for personal safety. She said that even going to the bathroom was like a gamble, as it meant spending the rest of the performance queuing in front of “unhygienic, smelly booths”.
The site, a huge piece of government land in the northern city of Chandigarh, had no public transport or parking, so Ms Kaur had no choice but to drive to a friend’s place nearby – and then get stuck in the inevitable, hours-long traffic jam after the end of the concert.
“You pay so much for a ticket, and what do you get in return? A urinary infection and a severe headache with bouts of music are possible,” she says about her experience.
This year has been a landmark year for India’s growing concert industry, with major tours by Dua Lipa, Dosanjh and Maroon 5 already thrilling audiences in stadiums and arenas. Other international acts such as Green Day, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran are scheduled to perform in the coming months.
In fact, music concerts of India received about 8 billion rubles ($94.1 million; £75.3 million) in revenue last year, a figure that is set to increase by 25% by the end of 2025.
Young, affluent Indians are not just willing to pay more to see their favorite music stars, they are actively seeking out these events. In 2023, over 400,000 people in India said they were traveled to other cities in India, external attend live events.
But despite the enthusiasm, many concertgoers say their experience was far from ideal. The issue hit the headlines earlier this week when a diabetic with incontinence problems said he ended up soiling himself at a Bryan Adams concert because there were no toilets on site.
The same day, Dosanjh, who was on a national tour, shocked his fans by announcing that he would no longer perform in India until the infrastructure at concert venues improved. Later, the singer clarified that he meant only one of the sites.
