Opeth’s India tour for The Last Will and Testament played Mumbai on October 3 - but only after promoter SkillBox lost two venues trying to put it together.
In a statement posted the day before the show, promoter SkillBox said permission fell through first at Ballard Pier and then at NESCO. The show eventually was moved to The Lalit Lawns at The Lalit Mumbai, with no alcohol permission and no parking allowance. Dirge stayed on as support and the show went ahead as scheduled.
Opeth has history here. The Swedish prog-metal band played IIT Madras’s Saarang festival in 2009 and returned in 2012 to headline Summer Storm in Bengaluru, where frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt called India a market the band wanted to focus on. Years later, getting the band onto a Mumbai stage took nearly everything the promoter had.
Two no's and a hotel lawn
Ballard Pier was the original venue. SkillBox said permissions were denied over protests tied to education reforms in the area, along with broader security concerns around standalone live venues.
The show then shifted to NESCO, where permission was refused again. SkillBox cited "past incidents" without naming them. In April, two MBA students died after an alleged MDMA overdose at a rave at the NESCO Centre - an incident that set off a wider crackdown on concerts and raves across the city.
The Lalit Lawns, at the five-star hotel near the airport, came on board as venue partner days before the show. SkillBox said the search had run for months, through repeated applications, and that the promoter had offered to meet any safety and operational conditions asked of them. At one point, they said the uncertainty behind the venue almost pushed the show towards cancellation.
A dry city, for now
The no-alcohol rule at the show was not a call the venue made. SkillBox said event liquor licenses are currently not being issued anywhere in Mumbai, and the restriction was not specific to The Lalit Lawns and the show.
Bar sales are often what closes the gap between income from ticket sales and cost of flying in an international act. Take it away and promoters will either raise ticket prices, cut production or reconsider the city.
This isn’t the first time Maharashtra has pulled a liquor license at the last minute. In November 2024, the state excise department cancelled the permit for Diljit Dosanjh’s Pune concert just hours before the show. What is different now, by SkillBox’s account, is scale. Concerts across the city have been running under tighter security and no-alcohol policies since April, including Calvin Harris's show on the 18th.
Who pays for a last-minute move
"This venue change has not made the show cheaper," SkillBox said. Skillbox said the late shift pushed costs nearly double the original budget, with both venue and production bills rising.
The promoter acknowledged that some ticket holders had travelled from other cities and picked up some extra costs of their own. With no parking at the venue, attendees were told to take public transport or arrange their own way in. SkillBox offered refunds through its in-app AI support for anyone who couldn’t make the new arrangement work.
What it means for the next booking
Opeth’s week is a case study on how only a few doors are open for mid-sized live shows in Mumbai at the moment. Open-air standalone venues face security concerns, a major convention ground was ruled out, and the bar is shut citywide. That leaves a narrow set of options for mid-sized touring acts, and in Opeth’s case, a hotel lawn.
Opeth still got the show. In April, Circoloco’s Mumbai edition at Jio World Garden was called off just hours before doors, with artists including Mau P and Chris Stussy already in the city. Organizers cited updated regulatory protocols and said permissions hadn’t been issued in time; Mumbai Police said they served three notices and refused permission over law and order concerns, noting that the promoters had applied only 10 days out. Earlier this year, NO ART’s ANOTR-headlined festival, was set to debut at Bayview Lawns in March before being rescheduled to November with no official reason.
The acts most exposed are not the stadium headliners. They are bands like Opeth, with niche crowds, where tight margins and a lost bar or venue switch can decide whether the show will happen at all. This time, the promoter fought it. "Cancelling was simply not an option we were willing to accept without fighting until the very end," SkillBox said in its statement. The open question is how many more times promoters will be willing to.
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