Lyte, the live events e-commerce platform, has announced their acquisition of the assets of two UK-based companies, Festicket and Event Genius. The Festicket and Event Genius platforms enable attendees of events worldwide to book tickets, travel accommodations and make in-venue payments for items like food, beverages and merchandise. The acquisition represents significant immediate growth for Lyte, with a broad expansion of their services and team worldwide, and brings much-needed stability and solutions to the global promoter community. Festicket and Event Genius worked with hundreds of festivals and events across the UK, EU, Australia and Latin America. The asset acquisition enables Lyte to offer its unique and beloved experience to fans attending live events across the globe while building upon its successful partnership integration model with ticketing platforms in the United States.
With this new global orientation, Lyte expands the footprint of the alternate universe they have created to further innovate in an industry that has long optimized for business outcomes over fan experience. Lyte’s universe puts fans first, enabling them to reserve tickets without competing with other fans and brokers during on-sales, to return tickets if their plans change and to easily secure tickets to sold out events. The results that Lyte delivers include fuller venues for talent and event stakeholders and a significant reduction in risk for fans of overpaying or being stuck with unusable tickets.
“Lyte’s success to date has been achieved by building a coalition of employees, ticketing companies, and event organizers who share the aspiration to make all aspects of going to a show as great as seeing the talent that graces the stage,” said Lawrence Peryer, Lyte’s Chief Commercial Officer. “With the assets we have acquired in this transaction – and all of the new team members in the UK, Europe and Australia who we welcome as part of it – we are bringing global opportunities to our existing employees and partners while extending an offer of access to our alternate universe to all promoters, ticket platforms and fans worldwide. The future of live events is here.”
“Ten years ago I visited London for the 2012 Olympic games. The events were sold out, there were no tickets on the streets but the venues were half-full. I was just a fan but that empty seats problem stuck with me and led me to start Lyte a couple years later,” said Ant Taylor, Lyte’s CEO and Founder. “To be launching Lyte’s international expansion from the place where it all started, is truly special. Our company vision is to make the live events e-commerce experience magical for fans and event creators, the world over…This is a step in that direction. Now the real work begins.”
The acquisition comes in the midst of a banner 2022 for Lyte, as they continue to be at the forefront of the live events e-commerce landscape. Lyte is powering 34% of the North American-based festivals on Billboard’s recently-published Top 50 Festivals of 2022, including Life Is Beautiful, Pitchfork Music Festival, BottleRock, Baja Beach Fest and others. Lyte CCO Lawrence Peryer has shared his insight and expertise on the current concert season in recent articles from Rolling Stone, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal. Lyte is a sponsor of the National Independent Talent Organization (NITO) and an affiliate member of the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), two non-profit organizations that align with Lyte’s mission to provide solutions for and promote the health of the live music ecosystem. In addition to their festival roster, Lyte has partnered with artists including Jacob Collier, Jackson Browne, and Billy Strings as well as venues including the 9:30 Club, The Anthem and Merriweather Post Pavilion in the D.C. area, Levon Helm Studios, Higher Ground in Burlington, Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles and many others.
