Music festivals and golf tournaments are weirdly similar.
Both happen outdoors. They each have to be set up and taken down. Fans everywhere leave their everyday lives for days at time just to experience the feeling of watching their idols do what they do best, in the flesh.
The comparison oddly makes sense, doesn’t it? Absolutely, says Elevate Tickets President Jack McCarty.
“No two festivals are the same, and no two golf tournaments are the same,” he says. “Replace the instruments and stages and musicians with golf clubs, courses and golfers, and they have more in common than you would think.”
Elevate has sold as many as 13 million tickets and four million RFID wristbands for some of the biggest and best festivals out there — Coachella, Electric Forest, Country Thunder, Camp Flog Gnaw, Stagecoach, Just Like Heaven and more.
It also is the official ticketer for — you guessed it — several PGA Tour events, including the Waste Management Phoenix Open and the Safeway Open in Napa Valley.
Lyte teamed up with Elevate last year. The two tech platforms are working together to provide a better experience for fans who attend live events, especially festivals.
“Elevate as a primary ticket provider is so well-suited for the needs of festivals, from the planning stages to the last artist who takes the stage on the final day,” says Lyte CEO Ant Taylor. “That’s what makes partnering with them really fun and rewarding, both for us and for the great festivals we work with.”
Here’s how Lyte works: We give fans who missed the onsale the opportunity to buy tickets from fans who can’t go at a totally fair market price. Ticketing partners like Elevate issue new, valid tickets with a new barcode or wristband to the fans who made the purchase.
It’s all safe, legitimate and puts ticketing back in the hands of fans — and away from the secondary market.
“We are fortunate enough to have a number of clients that have very successful events and find themselves in a sellout scenario, but they also find a lot of meaning in the fan experience and the reputation of their brands,” McCarty says. “There is a secondary market out there that exists around these events, along with fake tickets and exorbitant pricing. Our clients were interested in Lyte because it offers an alternative to the traditional secondary market that fits in with the festival brands and their fan-based reputations.”
Lyte and Elevate worked together for the first time at Stagecoach 2018. It started as a trial, but McCarty soon wanted to include the exchange into a broader range of Elevate-ticketed festivals and events.
Lyte was involved in eight Elevate events last year and has powered 10 in the first four months of 2019 alone. That’s some pretty great evidence of the expanding Lyte-Elevate partnership.
Lyte “has become part of our entire event preparation process. It makes sense,” McCarty says.
McCarty says he likes working with the Lyte team, including Taylor, head of business development Lawrence Peryer, and head of engineering Nolan Brown. The personal relationships are huge to the partnership’s ongoing success, he says.
“We were so intrigued by the value proposition that Lyte brought to the table as being more of an integrated partner in the facilitation of post-primary exchanges,” McCarty says.
Lyte also offers clients a way to capture important post-sellout and waitlist data they can use to evaluate success, build consumer databases, and make changes if needed, McCarty says, which is a huge benefit.
Working on Stagecoach resulted in an unexpected, yet exciting outcome: the discovery of just how much impact Lyte’s presence and availability has on ticket buyers.
Fans who purchased through Lyte for Stagecoach 2018 were given an exclusive presale window for early access on this year’s passes. Once the event was sold out, Lyte, Elevate, and Stagecoach made it easy to return them if need be, no questions asked.
Lyte powered Coachella for the first time this year. We also are the official exchange for the Elevate clients listed earlier: Electric Forest, Country Thunder, Camp Flog Gnaw, Stagecoach, and Just Like Heaven.
“We give our festival partners and their fans control in areas where the secondary market has impacted the entire experience,” Taylor says. “Festivals go on sale early, which increases the likelihood of someone’s plans changing by the tie it comes around. We’re doing everything we can to help improve what happens between when you purchase a ticket and the time the festival gates open.”
Festivals are a blank canvas every year — and their energy is both inspiring rewarding, McCarty says.
“You see all those people out there and the musicians take the stage, and you know that you had something to do with it,” McCarty says. “Whether it’s a polo field or a parking lot or a city park, communities develop around festivals. People go to a campsite and for one weekend a year and share in the vibe and culture before they pack it up and go home to their day jobs.
“Lyte understands the meaning of the fan experience — and that’s why they are here.”
McCarty adds: “As we look for new clients, Lyte gives us another arrow in the quiver. The Lyte team and the Elevate team work together to protect fans and so our clients don’t have to do any heavy lifting. We’ve found it to be effective for our biggest shows, our smallest shows, and everything in between.”
But what about Lyte powering those golf tourneys?
“Not yet,” McCarty laughs. “But that’s not to say we won’t have Lyte there down the road.”
About Lyte
Lyte makes it easier for fans to go to more live events. Founded in New York City and San Francisco by CEO Ant Taylor, our killer fan feature is returnability. In an industry where a “no refunds and no cancellations” policy is the standard, Lyte enables fans to return their event tickets, no questions asked, to the official point of purchase.
Lyte also provides a safe and official reservation booking system, offering fans who sign up a fair price for in-demand tickets. One hundred percent of the tickets bought and sold through Lyte are issued through our ticketing partners and delivered directly to fans. Lyte has delivered millions in fan savings — $1.8 million in 2018 alone. It’s only getting better from here, thanks to our growing partnerships with bands, venues, promoters, ticketers and festivals.
For the industry, we function as a full inventory management solution, including a private-label secondary market to optimize event yield for event producers. Visit lyte.com.