Lyte and Newport Folk Fest: Three years of protecting fans from price gouging and fraudulent tickets

Maggie O'Brien
Lyte
Published in
5 min readFeb 11, 2019
Newport Folk — CREDIT: Douglas Mason/Getty Images

The first year the Newport Folk Festival sold out was both exhilarating and excruciating for its organizers.

Exhilarating because fans had purchased every single one of the 30,000 tickets the longtime festival had for sale.

Excruciating because some had to be turned away at the gate after spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on tickets that turned out to be fake. They had purchased them on the secondary ticket market — often at four times their face value — believing they were legitimate.

“There was shock at first and then there was often tears,” said Deb Girard, the Newport Folk Festival’s director of ticketing operations. “They wanted to go so badly that they offered to pay right there to get in, but we were at capacity. It was really heartbreaking to see that.”

Girard and other festival organizers understood after that first sellout that something had to be done to safeguard their fans from being scammed and gouged. They teamed up with Eventbrite, which began using its system to issue festival tickets that were certain to land in the hands of fans instead of scalpers.

Then they made a decision that changed everything: the Newport Folk Festival teamed up with Lyte to power a fan-to-fan ticket exchange once the festival sold out.

The entire fan experience improved immediately, Girard said.

“People didn’t know what to expect at first,” she said. “But then it turned out so great. They were so relieved Lyte was on board — and so were we.”

The partnership between Lyte and the Newport Folk Festival is now in its third year. The 2019 festival is scheduled for July 26–28 at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, Rhode Island.

The festival’s lineup is among the most highly-anticipated in New England. This year’s includes Phil Lesh and The Terrapin Family Band, Cedric Burnside, Haley Heynderickx, Jade Bird, Todd Snider, Mountain Man, Gregory Alan Isakov, Bonny Light Horseman and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy.

“Newport was one of our first festival partners and a natural fit,” said Lyte CEO Ant Taylor. “Selling out changed the game for them. They saw that bigger success came with it a crucial need to protect their fans, and that’s where we could make a difference.”

The Lyte platform allows festival fans to return tickets if their plans change or request tickets if they missed the onsale. Both are offered a fair market price to sell or buy. Eventbrite (a Lyte ticketing partner) issues new, totally valid tickets to fans who have made a purchase.

Since the Lyte-Newport partnership began, the average price of sold-out tickets for the festival has dropped by as much as 50 percent.

Festival fans saved $237,159 in 2017 and $223,344 in 2018, a total of $460,503. They spent $95 less per ticket in 2107 and $75 less per ticket in 2018. No-show rates have dropped significantly.

And more fans are choosing the Lyte exchange over risking invalid tickets secondary market price gouging. After the 2017 festival sold out in 2016, 600 tickets were sold using Lyte; 2,438 were sold on the secondary market.

A year later, 4,209 tickets were sold on the Lyte exchange, compared to 1,377 on the secondary market. That’s a 43 percent drop.

“We drove down — and away — the secondary market,” Taylor said. “Fans are returning to buy sold-out tickets on Lyte because they understand how easy, fair and safe our platform is.”

The 2019 Newport Folk Festival sold out tin 40 minutes — before the lineup was even announced. Lyte began powering it soon after the last ticket was sold.

“Lyte gets our mission, which is really nice for us, the fans and the artists,” Girard said. “We wanted an exchange where fans could return their tickets or get on a wait list. With Lyte, our fans now have a place to go.”

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.

Late also provides a safe and official reservation booking system, offering fans who sign up a fair price for in-demand tickets. 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.

Lyte is easy to use and puts valid tickets in the hands of fans who share the same love of live events that we do. One hundred percent of the tickets bought and sold through Lyte are issued through our ticketing partners and delivered directly to fans. Yes, we’ve saved fans money. But we’ve also made sure fans who use Lyte will never get to the box office to find out that the tickets they bought were fraudulent.

For the industry, we function as a full inventory management solution, including a private-label secondary market to optimize event yield for event producers.

Fans can request or return tickets to tons of sold-out events here. Check out all of the great live events Lyte is currently powering.

Want more information on Lyte? Email press@lyte.com.

About the Newport Folk Festival

The Newport Folk Festival, founded in 1959, is produced under the umbrella of the Newport Festivals Foundation, which works to foster the legacy of music festivals, educate local youth and preserve the innate traditions and folk and jazz music. The foundation also puts on the Newport Jazz Festival, also held at Fort Adams State Park. This year’s jazz fest is scheduled for Aug. 2–4.

Neither festival profits from ticket sales. Check out the foundation’s website for information on the folk festival, the jazz festival and the organization itself.

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Maggie O'Brien
Lyte
Editor for

Maggie is a writer for Lyte, a technology platform that puts the secondary market back in the hands of rightsholders and fans. Visit Lyte.com.