Nivin Pauly's "Premam", which was released on Friday, 29 May, has been receiving an overwhelming response from the Malayalam movie-goers and critics.
However, some residents of Bengaluru have informed IBTimes India that they could not watch the Nivin Pauly and Anupama Parameshwaran starrer as many theatre staff were seen selling the tickets in "black" at a local theatre in Tavarakere.
Read "Premam" review HERE
"The show was at 9:45 pm at Balaji theatre in Tavarekere on Friday, 29 May. We reached the theatre at 8:45 pm. However, the ticket counter was opened for just 5 minutes and the theatre staff told us the tickets were all sold out. But we saw many people selling the tickets in black," Albin Suresh, who has uploaded its video on YouTube, told IBTimes.
"Premam" success party in Dubai
However, selling tickets in black is no more a news as this is a regular practice throughout the country in almost all local theatres.
The movie-goers were surprised after they noticed the involvement of theatre staff in the black ticket business. They closed the ticket counters long before the show.
"We have many times seen people selling tickets in black, but here theatre staff are also involved in doing it, it is been happening during the initial week of every major releases. This time, we took a video too. During the release week of "Oru Vadakkan Selfie", we even saw the theatre staff talking to the ones selling the black tickets and giving them the whole ticket bundle, soon after the staff told us the tickets were over," Anand, another movie-goer said.
"The ones selling the tickets in black (in the video) are just daily wage workers, who might get few 100s for their job. The theatre owners allowing them to do it for their own business profit is something, which is shocking," he further said.
Watch the videos below:
