The first time I saw Coldplay perform was in the US back in 2005. I was still in high school, watching with a couple of friends from a grassy hill as the sun was setting and the band played hits like Yellow and Fix You.
Fast forward more than a decade and I found myself seeing them again – this time in Abu Dhabi. It was an electric night, with colourful lasers and fireworks lighting up the night as they counted down to the new year during A Sky Full of Stars.
With memories like these, I knew I wanted to go when I heard Coldplay were returning to the UAE capital. What I didn’t expect, though, was the challenge of getting tickets.
Adventure of a Lifetime: Feeling hopeful
Like many others, I registered for the pre-sale and hoped to get early access to tickets on Wednesday. Apparently, so did everyone else in my office … and Abu Dhabi.
My colleague and I joined the waiting room at the same time, but I made the mistake of refreshing my page, thinking I had accidentally logged out. And it cost me. While my colleague was number 1,300-something in line, I found myself stuck at more than 50,000. Another co-worker landed somewhere around the 190,000 mark.
As expected, my colleague with the lower number quickly snagged tickets, while I watched my spot crawl down the queue, wondering if I’d ever make it into the four digits.
While still waiting in the initial queue, a second show was announced. I tried to hurry over to the other queue, only to still be left waiting at the five-digit mark again. Although I considered continuing to wait it out, I eventually gave up and decided to register for the Live Nation pre-sale instead, hoping for better luck the next day.
Every Teardrop is a Waterfall: Not giving up quite yet
Later in the evening, a third show was announced. Knowing what I knew from my first attempt, I got my partner involved by having him register for the second pre-sale as well, hoping this would yield a better result.
I made sure he knew to check his email closer to noon and that he had activated his Live Nation account. I wasn’t going to have any hiccups and was determined to get through this time. We decided to split the concert dates to improve our chances. He would try January 12 while I would go for January 14.
When we did get in our queues, we were both back in five-digit territory. “Surely there aren’t really this many people looking to get tickets”, I thought. After a few hours, we both gave up.
The Escapist: Giving it another try
The more times I failed, the more I wanted to get tickets. I decided to go for the same game plan when general tickets went on sale on Friday. My partner and I would each try for different dates and get any ticket category we could.
I joined the waiting room a few minutes early. When the screen loaded, I had 43,000-something people ahead of me while my partner only had 3,930. There was hope after all!
I was so excited and started to believe this would be it. I was periodically updated as he got closer, with the number lowering until it was his turn. But he couldn't find any tickets for general admission.
The Dh1,495 tickets were still available and I started to think of all the other things we could spend Dh3,000 on instead. It was also at this moment that I started questioning how much I really liked Coldplay. I told him to keep trying for cheaper tickets.
He eventually got stuck and gave up when screen said there was no more. I was still waiting in my queue when the fourth show was announced and quickly hopped over to the January 9 queue, securing a spot around the 28,000 mark. There was still hope.
The queue went quicker than I thought, which I took as good news. However, by the time I made it through after more than two hours, I faced the same issues as my partner: no tickets were available. No many how many times I tried, I got the same message.
Viva La Vida: Some final thoughts
I’m not sure I have ever been as frustrated as this when trying to secure concert tickets. Still, there’s something about the energy of seeing Coldplay live that keeps pulling me back.
I'm still hoping I may be able to see them in January somehow – even if, right now, the thought of staying home with my cats and a playlist seems just as appealing.
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GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
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Three tips from La Perle's performers
1 The kind of water athletes drink is important. Gwilym Hooson, a 28-year-old British performer who is currently recovering from knee surgery, found that out when the company was still in Studio City, training for 12 hours a day. “The physio team was like: ‘Why is everyone getting cramps?’ And then they realised we had to add salt and sugar to the water,” he says.
2 A little chocolate is a good thing. “It’s emergency energy,” says Craig Paul Smith, La Perle’s head coach and former Cirque du Soleil performer, gesturing to an almost-empty open box of mini chocolate bars on his desk backstage.
3 Take chances, says Young, who has worked all over the world, including most recently at Dragone’s show in China. “Every time we go out of our comfort zone, we learn a lot about ourselves,” she says.
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA
Starring: Nader Abd Alhay, Majd Eid, Ramzi Maqdisi
Directors: Tarzan and Arab Nasser
Rating: 4.5/5
Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
Common OCD symptoms and how they manifest
Checking: the obsession or thoughts focus on some harm coming from things not being as they should, which usually centre around the theme of safety. For example, the obsession is “the building will burn down”, therefore the compulsion is checking that the oven is switched off.
Contamination: the obsession is focused on the presence of germs, dirt or harmful bacteria and how this will impact the person and/or their loved ones. For example, the obsession is “the floor is dirty; me and my family will get sick and die”, the compulsion is repetitive cleaning.
Orderliness: the obsession is a fear of sitting with uncomfortable feelings, or to prevent harm coming to oneself or others. Objectively there appears to be no logical link between the obsession and compulsion. For example,” I won’t feel right if the jars aren’t lined up” or “harm will come to my family if I don’t line up all the jars”, so the compulsion is therefore lining up the jars.
Intrusive thoughts: the intrusive thought is usually highly distressing and repetitive. Common examples may include thoughts of perpetrating violence towards others, harming others, or questions over one’s character or deeds, usually in conflict with the person’s true values. An example would be: “I think I might hurt my family”, which in turn leads to the compulsion of avoiding social gatherings.
Hoarding: the intrusive thought is the overvaluing of objects or possessions, while the compulsion is stashing or hoarding these items and refusing to let them go. For example, “this newspaper may come in useful one day”, therefore, the compulsion is hoarding newspapers instead of discarding them the next day.
Source: Dr Robert Chandler, clinical psychologist at Lighthouse Arabia
Mobile phone packages comparison
The biog
Name: Abeer Al Bah
Born: 1972
Husband: Emirati lawyer Salem Bin Sahoo, since 1992
Children: Soud, born 1993, lawyer; Obaid, born 1994, deceased; four other boys and one girl, three months old
Education: BA in Elementary Education, worked for five years in a Dubai school
Read more about the coronavirus
GOLF’S RAHMBO
- 5 wins in 22 months as pro
- Three wins in past 10 starts
- 45 pro starts worldwide: 5 wins, 17 top 5s
- Ranked 551th in world on debut, now No 4 (was No 2 earlier this year)
- 5th player in last 30 years to win 3 European Tour and 2 PGA Tour titles before age 24 (Woods, Garcia, McIlroy, Spieth)
THE BIO: Martin Van Almsick
Hometown: Cologne, Germany
Family: Wife Hanan Ahmed and their three children, Marrah (23), Tibijan (19), Amon (13)
Favourite dessert: Umm Ali with dark camel milk chocolate flakes
Favourite hobby: Football
Breakfast routine: a tall glass of camel milk
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
