The ticket-selling platform that has been supporting two major Australian music festivals has suddenly closed, with festival goers worried what it means for the events.
Lyte is a third-party ticketing agent based in the US, which marketed itself as a fan-to-fan ticket exchange where people could re-sell their tickets ‘ethically’.
But for Australian events like Lost Paradise, a multi-day music festival held in regional NSW over New Years Eve, and Queensland-based festival Rabbits East Lettuce, Lyte was also being used as a primary ticketing platform.
The Lyte ticketing website says it's down for maintenance.
The Lyte website has been down with a message reading, "Be back soon" and says, "Our website is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance."
Festival goers like Callum Hendry-Hodsdon had raised the alarm about Lyte’s ticketing issues on Lost Paradise festival’s Instagram page.
The 24-year-old from Sydney was keen to head along to his first ever multi-day music festival.
"I got tickets for Lost Paradise pretty much as soon as they went on sale," he said.
"I got all of the tickets for my friends."
Callum said he tried to upgrade their tickets online, but the website wasn’t working.
"It’s just a confusing time because you’ve purchased these tickets, you’re trying to make these plans, [and] you want to support Australian festivals," Callum said.
Callum was looking forward to his first ever multi-day festival. (Supplied)
Earlier this week, Lost Paradise released a statement about the Lyte ticketing issues.
"We are aware that our ticketing platform, Lyte, is currently offline. We are also aware of the news stories reporting that the company has gone under. Communication with Lyte’s senior team has not helped us understand exactly what has happened," the statement read.
What do we know about Lyte?
Ticketing agent Lyte has represented some of the biggest music events in the world, including US festival Coachella.
Ant Taylor was the CEO and founder and launched the company in 2014.
In 2021, Mr Taylor told a Silicon Valley business podcast Lyte was growing really quickly.
"It’s a live events business, it helps people get to more shows and it helps more shows happen with a lot less risk."
Loading...US music magazine Billboard has reported Ant Taylor has resigned this month and that Lyte has laid off its staff – allegedly leaving concert promoters unpaid for hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of tickets sold on the platform.
Billboard has also reported two music festivals in the US – Lost Lands in Ohio and North Coast in Chicago – are suing Lyte for losses of more than $300,000 after the company’s sudden closure, alleging the business had shifted into a large-scale ticket scalping operation.
Billboard reported documents from the lawsuits show Lyte’s main source of revenue came from working directly with promoters to scalp hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of VIP tickets for their events.
It’s alleged that Lyte would then resell those tickets at large mark-ups, splitting the profit with the promoter.
How does this impact the Australian music scene?
We don’t know what all of this means for Lost Paradise yet, but it wasn’t the only Aussie festival using Lyte.
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Rabbits Eat Lettuce is a festival in south-east Queensland that runs over the Easter long weekend.
Nearly two weeks ago, the festival’s ticketing page went down.
Erik Lamir, the director of Rabbits Eat Lettuce, said this raised red flags for his team.
"I was immediately looking at other options, because that just didn’t feel right," he told triple j Hack.
"There's a number of ticketing agencies, and it's just trying to find the one that has the right functions and ticks the boxes.
"Ultimately, with Lyte, they talk the talk. But in the end, they didn't walk the walk."
Later, Mr Lamir was contacted by Lyte’s chief financial officer, who said the company had suspended operations.
"Fortunately, there was a skeleton crew still left in Lyte that have hung around long enough to at least provide us with all of the ticketing data," Mr Lamir said.
Rabbits Eat Lettuce was able to switch ticket providers to Humanitix, an Australian-based company, but estimated they were out of pocket about $30,000 since Lyte’s shutdown.
Mr Lamir wasn’t optimistic they would get that money back.
"In hindsight, it wasn't a good move. That's why we've kind of moved our ticketing back to Humanitix, which is an Australian-based company."
Rabbits Eat Lettuce festival has changed its ticketing partner. (Facebook: Rabbits Eat Lettuce)
Where does this leave festival goers?
According to Lost Paradise’s statement, the festival hopes to release more concrete updates soon.
"We are taking this situation seriously as we do everything we can to protect and understand the impact this will have on ticket holders. We are looking to have a resolution to share with you soon.
"In the meantime, all sales of our accommodation upgrades, parking passes and VIP upgrades remain on hold."
Indya Mae from Adelaide was planning a road trip to Lost Paradise, just like she did last year.
Indya is hoping the festival still goes ahead.
The 22-year-old said the whole situation was nerve-wracking.
"Obviously it's not the festival's fault, it’s not something they can control," she told triple j Hack.
She hoped Lost Paradise could make it through.
"They must be having such a sh*t time at the moment, and I am crossing all my fingers and sending them all the good vibes that it all just comes back together for them because … this is a really crappy situation," Indya said.
"A lot of people rely on live music as a source of happiness and a good time.
"It’s just not good."