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Lyte clients have opened up about the losses they're facing after the sudden shutdown of the US-based ticketing exchange firm
By Lisa Henderson on 11 Oct 2024
Details of the fallout from the sudden closure of US-based ticketing exchange firm Lyte have begun to emerge.
Lyte shut down in mid-September after ten years of operation, with CEO and founder Ant Taylor confirming that an “emergency board/creditors effort [is] underway” to find a potential buyer to repay punters and promoters affected by Lyte’s sudden shutdown.
Since then, some of Lyte’s clients have spoken out – and even taken legal action – against the firm, which reportedly owes numerous promoters hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Organisers of Lost Paradise, an annual touring Australian festival that has been running since 2014, yesterday (10 October) said that there’s now a question mark over this year’s edition.
“As you all know, Lyte has gone into administration,” says Simon Beckingham, founder of Lost Paradise and its parent promoter Finely Tuned. “It’s an extremely complex situation. We’ve been working around the clock tirelessly to find a solution for Lost Paradise to go ahead this year.
“All I ask is you give us a few more days to finalise the next steps. We will share more information with you shortly.”
“As you all know, Lyte has gone into administration… it’s an extremely complex situation”
Tickets to Lost Paradise went on sale in late August but, after Lyte went dark, the event halted sales of accommodation upgrades, Parking Passes and VIP upgrades.
The festival is slated to feature performances from FISHER, Marlon Hoffstadt, Sammy Virji, Tinashe, Royel Otis, Confidence Man, Kita Alexander, Nick Ward, Caribou and more.
Another Australian event, the 5,000-capacity boutique festival Rabbits Eat Lettuce, has also spoken out about their business with Lyte.
Organiser Erik Lamir estimated he lost $30,000 and doubted he’d get the money back. The event is set to take place between 17 to 21 April 2025, in Queensland, Australia.
Meanwhile, US festivals Lost Lands and North Coast Music Festival have launched legal action against Lyte to recover the money they have lost. They each face more than $300,000 in losses, court records show.
Lyte bills itself as a fan-to-fan ticket exchange where fans could list tickets to events they couldn’t attend and ethically resell those tickets to other fans wanting to attend a concert.
“Many festivals have used LYTE as a resale platform over the years and are now affected by this extremely frustrating and disappointing situation”
Billboard however reports that documents from recent lawsuits show that Lyte’s main source of revenue came from working directly with promoters to sell hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of VIP tickets for events at large markups, splitting the upside between the promoter and itself.
Others, like the North Coast Music Festival, sold tickets on Lyte for below their original checkout price to ensure buyers who wished to use the secondary market would receive valid tickets.
According to one court document, of the 3,064 tickets listed on Lyte for the North Coast Music Festival in Chicago (Aug. 30-Sept. 1), 89 tickets came from fan listings. Lyte would use those fan listings to drive traffic to an additional 2,975 tickets posted directly on Lyte by the event’s promoters, Billboard said.
The team behind Lost Lands Music Festival, which takes place each September in Legend Valley, Ohio says it’s owed $330,000 for the tickets it sold on Lyte, plus the upside it generated from the markups. According to the Lost Land’s lawsuit (filed under its corporate name of APEX Management), Lyte paid APEX a $100,000 advanced fee for using the ticketing platform, which APEX repaid by early September.
“We have created a solution that we hope will help anyone who is awaiting payment from LYTE, regardless of it coming at a very high cost to us”
“Many festivals have used LYTE as a resale platform over the years and are now affected by this extremely frustrating and disappointing situation,” the festival said in a statement issued on social media. “Most importantly, some fans are stuck in limbo as their money is being held by the company which has ceased operations. While LYTE has gone silent, we want to do whatever we can to take care of our community. We have created a solution that we hope will help anyone who is awaiting payment from LYTE, regardless of it coming at a very high cost to us.”
Fans could submit a claim to the festival by 9 October proving what they are owed from LYTE. Once all claims are submitted, the festival will need until 6 November to review and verify. Once all the claims are verified, Lost Lands promises fans they will receive a payment for the verified amount by 20 November.
“We hope this will be received as a gesture of goodwill from us to our community, who we want to support through this situation,” the festival said.
Lyte’s shutdown comes two years after the company acquired Festicket and Event Genius assets signalling “significant and immediate growth for Lyte”. London-headquartered Festicket, which acquired Event Genius and the associated Ticket Arena consumer website and brand in 2019, formally entered administration earlier that year and owed more than £22.5 million at the time of its collapse.
Festicket and Event Genius worked with hundreds of festivals and events across the UK, EU, Australia and Latin America, including BPM Festival, Ibiza Rocks, Summer Daze and Annie Mac’s Lost & Found Festival.
Lyte’s other clients include high-profile clients included Baja Beach festival, the Lost Lands festival in Ohio, Pitchfork Music Festival and Newport Folk Festival, although it’s unclear which events are owed money by Lyte.
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