Festivals detail fallout from Lyte’s shutdown
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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Music festivals hit back at NSW government
A coalition of music festival operators and promoters are taking the New South Wales government to court over new licensing regulations.
The organisers of Lost Paradise and Days Like This festivals are among those taking legal action against premier Gladys Berejiklian and her government. Both festivals feature on the list of 14 “higher risk” festivals released by the authorities earlier this week.
Festivals placed in the highest risk category are set to be the most affected by the government’s new regulations, which incur significant licensing and security costs. “Higher risk” events must supply a safety management plan in order to receive a license from the independent liquor and gaming authority.
Other companies involved in the collective legal action include Division agency, touring agency and marketing company, Novel, and event promotion company, Finely Tuned.
The group issued a statement, calling the decision to classify their festivals as higher risk “misguided and unwarranted” and the criteria used to do so “flawed”.
“It is a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction from the state that has caused severe damage to the festivals, our hard-working staff, and the hundreds of thousands of responsible attendees. We are disappointed that we were not properly consulted by the state prior to their making this damaging announcement,” reads the statement.
Days Like This spokesperson Jason Ayoubi adds that he is “perplexed and astounded” that the festival appears on the list of higher risk events.
“There was a real opportunity here for the NSW government to consult with an industry that generates over AUS$1.8 billion a year to come up with ways we could potentially improve safety at festivals,” says Ayoubi. “Instead they have chosen to vilify 14 individual festivals without any discussion.”
“It is a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction from the state that has caused severe damage to the festivals, our hard-working staff, and the hundreds of thousands of responsible attendees”
The founder of Sydney-based St Jerome’s Laneway festival, Danny Rogers, has also threatened to take legal action, stating it is “preposterous” that his event should appear on the list.
“It has the potential to cause untold brand and reputational damage and the festival is considering its legal position in relation to this,” Rogers announced to Australian radio station Triple J on Tuesday.
Another festival featuring on the “higher risk” list, Up Down, responded by sending the NSW premier a formal invitation to the festival.
“Did you hear? UP DOWN is on the festival ‘naughty list’ and we haven’t even had a chance to party yet!” reads a post on the festival’s facebook page. “In honour of making Premier Gladys B’s’ infamous list, we’re renaming our hugely popular ‘buy four get one free’ ticket offer to the ‘Gladys’ Party Pack’.”
The government continues to defend the new licensing regulations, which were implemented following a series of suspected drug-related deaths at festivals in the state.
“Most operators, including operators of higher risk festivals, are committed to safety and work hard to do the right thing – now they will have access to more expert advice and support to help them run safer events,” a government spokesperson told The Music Network.
Industry bodies including the Australian Festival Association, Live Performance Australia and Music NSW, as well as leading figures such as Byron Bluesfest founder Peter Noble, and Live Nation Australia chairman Michael Coppel have criticised the measures.
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Australian Festival Association: Drug policy “endangering lives”
The newly formed Australian Festival Association (AFA) has written to government urging urgent drug policy reform following the deaths of several Australian festivalgoers over the Christmas period.
Suspected drug-related fatalities over the festive period – mid-summer in Australia, and the height of its festival season – include a 19-year-old man, Callum Brosnan, at Knockout Games of Destiny in Sydney, a 20-year-old man at Beyond the Valley in Larnder, near Melbourne, and a 22-year-old man, Joshua Tam, at Lost Paradise in Glenworth Valley.
Despite the deaths – and a pill testing trial at last year’s Groovin the Moo that was hailed an “overwhelming success” by harm-reduction campaigners – the government of New South Wales (NSW), which contains Sydney and the Glenworth Valley, has once again rejected industry calls for permitting drug testing at live music events.
“The government position is quite clear on pill testing: We oppose the use of illegal drugs at these festivals,” NSW planning minister Anthony Roberts told reporters in Sydney. “We appeal to you, just enjoy the festival and do it without taking drugs.”
“Encouraging drug abstinence instead of education is out-of-touch, proven to be ineffective and unnecessarily risking lives”
In an open letter to Australia’s six state premiers and two chief ministers, the AFA today warned that by continuing to “encourag[e] drug abstinence instead of education”, the country’s decision-makers are endangering festivalgoers’ lives.
The AFA, which launched in December, represents Australian festival producers, promoters, organisers and operators. Its 2019 board is Jessica Ducrou (Splendour in the Grass, Falls Festival, Download), Adelle Robinson (Listen Out, Listen In, Field Day, Harbourlife, Curve Ball), Danny Rogers (Laneway), Matthew Lazarus-Hall (CMC Rocks) and Rod Little (Groovin the Moo, the Plot).
Read the AFA’s open letter in full below.
We are deeply saddened to hear of the deaths at Australian festivals during the recent holiday period and our thoughts are with the families and friends of those who lost their lives. Our thoughts are also with the medical, festival, production, security and law enforcement staff who were on the ground when these tragedies occurred.
Drug use is a complex issue and the current policies and strategies of our state and territory governments are needlessly endangering lives. Be it abuse of prescription medications, MDMA use at festivals or the devastating impact of ice [methamphetamine] on some of our regional communities, drug use is a national health issue that impacts many Australian families. We need to better understand drug use behaviour, identify significant intervention points, better coordinate between regulators, health, police, businesses and broader communities, and make sure that the health and safety of Australians is the ultimate priority.
As festival promoters, the last thing we want is someone to be hurt under our care. We need to be able to legally implement preventative strategies, not just reactive ones, and include any harm minimization [sic] tools that are available. We believe, and have evidence to support, that a combination of robust harm minimization strategies will help Australians make safer choices and reduce the harmful impacts of drug use on festival-goers and the broader community. This necessarily involves a collaborative, multi-layered approach of drug education, peer-to-peer support, pill-testing, health services and policing.
We ask state and territory governments across Australia to:
- Establish on-going state-based Music Festival Regulation Roundtables to ensure better relationships between regulators, medical experts, promoters, emergency service providers and law enforcement
- Utilise the significant experience and expertise of the Australian Festivals Association (AFA) – the national festivals representative body – and appoint AFA members to Regulation Roundtables across the states and territories
- Work with health, festival and drug experts to develop pill-testing trials
- Adopt an evidence-based, health-focused approach to drug regulation and commission further research into recreational drug use
- Collaborate to convene a national drug summit to allow in-depth, meaningful, expert-led discussion around drug use
We do not believe that pill-testing is the only answer. But it is a crucial part of a broader harm reduction strategy that prioritises people’s health and safety, over criminality or laws. Encouraging drug abstinence instead of education is out-of-touch, proven to be ineffective and unnecessarily risking lives. Young people deserve better. Older people deserve better. Families deserve better.
We implore Premier Berejiklian, Premier Andrews, Premier Marshall, Premier McGowan, Premier Palaszczuk, Premier Hodgman, Chief Minister Gunner and Chief Minister Barr to be open to better ideas and to work with experts on making festivals safer for everyone.
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