New Lyte sales director Laura Thurmond on changing the industry, our “do-good” product and what Seattle’s grunge scene was really like
Laura Thurmond was into the Seattle sound before anybody ever called it “The Seattle Sound.”
“I was the one who was always saying, ‘We’ve got to go see this band! It’s going to be great!’” she says. “It was a fantastic time to be around that community. Then it exploded.”
By “exploded,” Laura means Seattle grunge music of the late ’80s and early ’90s, a scene that started as a subculture, became a movement and made bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden galactically famous. At the time, Laura was selling ads for The Rocket, a monthly music magazine that covered artists in the Pacific Northwest.
“We’d all get together and talk about the shows we had seen the night before,” she says. “The Gits, 7 Year Bitch, Big Brown House, Mudhoney, Hammerbox, The Fastbacks, Nirvana. Everybody knew each other. Some bands made it big and others didn’t, but it was so much fun.”
Laura is Lyte’s new sales director. She comes to us after 17 years of running her own firm — Thurmond Media — where her sales clients included high-profile publications like Psychology Today, The Robb Report, Surface and Tape Op. Before that, she was killing it selling ads at Ziff Davis’ PC Computing, IDG’s Publish Magazine and RealNetworks, to name a few.
Laura lives in Austin with her husband, two daughters, and Leo, the sweetest, chillest dog ever. Here, she talks about her goals for Lyte, the importance of community and the truth about flannel shirts.
Lyte: You’ve had a great career in advertising sales. What brought you to us?
Laura: Lawrence (Peryer, Lyte’s head of business and corporate development) knew of my sales experience with Tape Op magazine, a creative music recording publication where I spent many years connecting with the music recording world, increasing overall revenue and launching events for readers. He reached out to me and said, “Hey, I need someone to head up sales for Lyte.” The timing was excellent. Lawrence knew I was looking around and that I was ready to come back to sales management, with my executive coaching experience to add to the role, rather than continuing to run my own firm. Working with Lawrence at a startup sounded pretty exciting.
Lyte: What are your plans for Lyte as you settle in?
Laura: My role at Lyte as sales director is to build a brand new sales team. I’ll manage a team of inside and outside sales associates in this exciting ticketing marketplace. The sales associates will then sell Lyte primarily to event venues and festivals.
In addition, I will manage relationships with any outside partners’ sales teams who are contracted to sell Lyte to venues, festivals and other clients.
Lyte: You’re based in Austin, which is a great city for music. But you started you career in Seattle, during a time when a significant period in music began to unfold. That must have been amazing.
Laura: Austin is a great city for music. There’s quite a diversity of types and going to places like ACL Live + 3Ten, The Continental Club, The Mohawk, C-Boy’s and more has been super. You can see some punk rock and then jump over to The Broken Spoke and swing dance to old-school country.
And, yes — it was a big scene in Seattle, although at the time we didn’t totally get how big it was. My husband was in a band. I just liked to hang out with artists and musicians. The scene still seemed really small in Seattle. But it got so big, with Sub Pop and the national news talking about how everyone was walking around wearing flannel shirts. But we didn’t actually look that way. Nobody did…..well, except for the Doc Martens boots! So it was really funny and weird how flannels, and referring to the music and lifestyle as “grunge,” took off. Now it’s cemented in history.
Lyte: You have a fresh perspective since you’re new to Lyte. What do you see in store for us down the road?
Laura: Lyte has the ability to be the ticketing platform that changes the live event industry forever. I think it’s going to be used everywhere. When you think of Lyte becoming the ticketing platform behind everything, with the technology that makes all of it happen — that’s pretty huge. Music is the number one category, of course, but there are other categories as well, and they are growing. The future of the company is exciting. Its potential is enormous.
Lyte is a do-good product. I’m at this point in my career where I wanted to move to a company that made some kind of difference. And Lyte is making a huge difference. Fans are saving money. Artists are seeing more people in their seats. It’s just good for the world.
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 ticket exchange.
Lyte 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, primary ticketing companies, 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.
