A major US ticketing company has suddenly exited the market. BusinessAustralian Throw Festivals As they scramble to find answers for the ticket holders, chaos ensues.
LiteTicketing has ceased operations and has also shut down its website, which now displays a “Back soon” message.
It reads: “Our website is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance. We'll be back soon.”
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Queensland festive rabbits eat salad and NSW'Lost Paradise' was one of the Australian events that used the ticketing platform, and now festival organisers are considering their next steps for ticket holders.
Light has furloughed his workers and has not paid several concert promoters for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tickets sold at the platform. Board Report.
Organisers of Rabbits Eat Lettuce initially said they were unable to contact Light for clarification about the “unexpected” outage.
In an update Wednesday, the festival said Light confirmed it had ceased operations.
“We have received a letter from a representative of Lite informing us that Lite Ticketing has suspended operations, so we have taken the necessary steps to change ticketing providers for REL 2025,” the company said.
“We apologize for the inconvenience caused by Lite, and we will work to ensure a smooth transition with all existing tickets transferred to the new provider.”
Festival organisers said they had decided to return to Humanitix and “trusted the local Australian company for stability, peace of mind and reliable service.”
“All admission tickets and items, glamping etc that have been purchased directly will be automatically transferred to the Humanitix system and reissued to the same email that was used to purchase your REL 2025 tickets through Light,” he added.
Organisers of Lost Paradise have postponed the on-sale date for their festival accommodation indefinitely while they consider the issue.
“We have been informed that our ticketing platform, Lite, is currently offline and displaying a 'scheduled maintenance' message,” the company said on Tuesday.
“We are actively investigating the issue,” he said.
“Thank you for your patience, more updates to come.”
7NEWS.com.au has contacted Lost Paradise for further comment.
Light's founder and CEO Ant Taylor confirmed to Billboard that he has resigned from the company.
According to Billboard, the emergency board is looking for a potential buyer who could pay fans and promoters affected by the shutdown.
It's unclear how many promoters and ticket buyers will be affected by the shutdown.
Major festival promoters often have several hundred thousand dollars worth of ticketing inventory listed on the Lite system, according to an attorney representing them with cumulative claims potentially exceeding $1 million against the ticketing platform, Billboard reports.
Lyte’s customers are reportedly concerned that the platform will go into administration without paying out any of the proceeds to its customers from tickets sold on their behalf.
According to Billboard, for smaller organizers, this amount can equal nearly the entire revenue of the event.
Lawyers for several festival customers are hoping to get their clients' money back before Light goes into administrative control, the outlet reports.
Lite was launched in 2014 as a fan-to-fan ticket exchange where punters could list tickets to events they couldn't attend and ethically sell them to other interested fans.
