Rolling Stone Names Ant Taylor in the Future Top 25 of Music

Our CEO Ant Taylor recently received the honor of being named by top culture and entertainment magazine Rolling Stone as their Future Top 25 of Music Influencers of 2021. Taylor is heralded among the likes of artist Jason Derulo, Motown Record CEO Ethiopia Habtemariam, and the actress and filmmaker, Lena Waithe.

In his interview with Rolling Stone, Taylor recalled the experience that pushed him to reimagine the event ticketing ecosystem: the London Olympics in 2012. While making his way to watch the volleyball games, he noticed empty seats surrounding him despite the hundreds of fans outside wanting to get in.

But the fans outside were at the mercy of ticket scalpers who were selling tickets at an exponentially increased rate. At that moment, Taylor realized that the ticketing industry was due for a revolution.

Taylor pointed out that nothing in the system had changed in the twenty years that concert tickets have been sold online. Taylor established Lyte in 2014 to enhance the fan experience, fill up venues, and eliminate scalping.

Typical ticketing platforms offer verified tickets, but often come with hidden fees and a firm “no returns” policy. And because all of the tickets drop at one time, scalpers or bots are able to buy tickets in bulk, creating ticket scarcity for events.

Taylor explained to Rolling Stone that the Lyte platform allows fans to put down their credit card information when an artist they love is expected to tour. This pre-registration process enables them to reserve their spot in line before a date or venue is even announced. When tickets do go on sale, they’ll have access to the concert tickets before the general public.

Fans get verified tickets, artists get to play to a full venue, and producers get a clearer picture of interest in various cities.

The popular music festival Coachella was one of Lyte’s first adopters, and since then, they’ve helped fans get access to festivals across America, New Zealand, and Australia.

Taylor led us through one of the most challenging times in modern entertainment: the COVID-19 pandemic. Miraculously, we were able to grow under the circumstances. As live entertainment returns, we want to give fans the best experience possible because they’ve waited so long to get back to concerts.

Lyte’s platform adapts to customers’ needs by allowing them to exchange their tickets if a conflict arises. Our ticket exchange platform puts tickets back in the hands of fans by allowing ticket holders to return purchased tickets to be resold to people on a waitlist at a fair market price. This eliminates third-party price hikes and guarantees fans authentic tickets to an event.

As Taylor stated to Rolling Stone, “My foundational principle was, ‘Why does this thing exist at all?’ Secondary market pricing is the gnarled, awful version of pricing that happens when a few middlemen… create artificial scarcity and then abuse that artificial scarcity to drive inefficient, really high prices.”

By developing a ticketing platform for fans by fans, the secondary market is controlled by the primary market. “Allowing somebody to return a ticket,” Taylor continued, “as simple as that is, leads to a complex sort of architecture problem, which I think we solved very well. If people can return tickets and other people can get access to those tickets, you actually eliminate the need for 80% or 90% of a secondary market.”

Our platform has been growing steadily, and we’ve been adding more clients to our roster. Not only are we helping fans get tickets, but our latest development is also helping event producers map out artist tours.

With priority reservation, tour planners can gauge interest for their performers in various cities, so they know what size of venue to book in each city.

Taylor hopes to continue expanding Lyte’s ability to help more people in other industries disrupt the traditional way of doing things. The more we can eliminate the challenges associated with high demand and scarcity, the better the consumer experience will be.

Taylor wrapped up his interview with Rolling Stone by saying that Lyte wants “to change the entire nature of how people think about the ticket-buying process to make it more intuitive, [like] other e-commerce experiences. Ultimately, we’d like the experience to be as good as the event.”

Read the entire Rolling Stone article here.

We’re proud to have one of the leading influencers of the music industry guide our organization. If you’re ready to reinvigorate your ticketing platform, reach out to us, and let’s see what Lyte can do for you.