Lyte’s CEO has resigned and its staff has been laid off. Here’s the thing: It still owes some promoters hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Well, this doesn’t bode well for the already ailing US festival market. Ticketing platform Lyte has abruptly discontinued operations, and its employees aren’t the only ones affected. The company reportedly owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to event organizers left holding the bag.
Billboard reports that Lyte CEO Ant Taylor has resigned from the company, with other stakeholders scrambling to form an emergency board and court an emergency investor to pay off its outstanding balances. Lyte’s staff has also been laid off, and a visit to its homepage reveals a landing page that reads, “Our website is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance.”
Lyte was launched in 2014 and is rumored to have raised $53 million in funding from investors like ‘s clientele includes the organizers of large-scale gatherings such as hedge fund manager Joseph Edelman and venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya. Its clientele includes organizers of large-scale gatherings such as Lost Lands, Baha Beach Fest, and Pitchfork Music Festival.
So where did things go wrong? According to The Ticketing Business, insiders argue that the Lyte’s acquisition of Festicket set it up for failure as leadership underestimated how far inheriting the company’s debt would set it back. One described it as “the stupidest deal ever done.” Another said that Lyte “went downhill pretty much” after the fact.
This reportedly cast the company into a cycle of bad decisions as it tried get back on a path to solvency. Among them was a business model change in which it helped promoters scalp tickets and pocketed half of the profits.
Attorneys representing a number of Lyte’s clients are currently hoping to pull their money out of the platform before it files for insolvency protection and goes into administration — if it opts to do so.