Music festivals in the States and Down Under are still grappling with the consequences of the abrupt Lyte implosion. Photo Credit: Hanny Naibaho
The Lyte shutdown’s fallout isn’t finished yet, as two music festivals are pushing back against claims that they used the defunct platform to scalp their own tickets. Meanwhile, the episode’s ripples are still being felt all the way in Australia.
These developments stem from the well-funded ticketing company’s abrupt cessation of operations earlier in September. We’ve covered the trainwreck situation every step of the way since then, including with a deep-dive analysis, multiple looks at the impacted festival organizers’ responses, and a breakdown of lawsuits filed by Lost Lands as well as North Coast Music Festival (NCMF).
In brief, the companies behind those happenings are suing Lyte for owed ticket-sale payments that failed to go out due to the platform’s shutdown. DMN obtained the Lost Lands suit, much of which is redacted, and conveyed the brass-tacks takeaways.
Beyond that analysis of the actual complaint, we also cited allegations made in a report from Billboard, which maintained in more words that the events’ organizers had transferred certain passes to Lyte, marked up the prices, and then taken a piece of the resulting revenue.
However, that’s not actually how things went down, according to statements from NCMF and Lost Lands as well as remarks forwarded to DMN by a rep for the former. Long story short, Billboard has updated its piece “to more accurately describe NCMF’s lawsuit against Lyte,” while The Festive Owl, another early coverer, then offered a clarification on its Billboard citation.
Stated bluntly, though the festivals are ticked off about the situation and concerned with potentially negative coverage, the ticket-scalping claims don’t appear too damaging in a sub-sector where astronomically inflated prices are in many ways the norm.
Furthermore, ongoing fan demands to receive compensation for passes sold via Lyte seem comparatively pressing for Lost Lands, which announced a related reimbursement program earlier this week. Despite warning of the “very high cost” and many moving parts involved with coughing up cash for Lyte’s apparent operational failure, Lost Lands is still facing a steady stream of related fan complaints on social media.
In the interest of leaving no stone unturned on the scalping-allegation side, Lost Lands also addressed the topic, writing: “Each year of the festival, there are some payment plans that fail close to the event date.
“This year, there were a very small number of tickets released in this process due to the event being sold out. LYTE had a significant waitlist of people hoping to attend the event, so instead of relaunching tickets on [Live Nation’s] Front Gate, we fulfilled a few hundred tickets to this waitlist on LYTE at final tier pricing,” proceeded the event.
Admittedly, that statement might seem curious in light of the estimated $600,000+ Lost Lands’ organizer said it could be owed from Lyte in the appropriate complaint. Nevertheless, there are, as noted, bigger fish to fry for the festival than any scalping claims.
Shifting to the initially mentioned Lyte-related ripples hitting Australia, we’ve provided several updates on the ticketing struggles of Lost Paradise (set to kick off on December 28th) and Rabbits Eat Lettuce (teed up for an April 17th start).
With more time to spare before its next edition, Rabbits Eat Lettuce promptly pivoted its tickets to Humanitix; Lost Paradise, on the other hand, had tapped Lyte for primary ticketing and has seen its sales paused as a result.
Lost Paradise doesn’t appear to have revealed new ticket-sale plans of its own, but per Pollstar, the 5,000-capacity event has about 500 unsold passes at present.
