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Lyte partners Mint Talent Group to offer flexible reservation system

Lyte, the San Francisco-based ticket exchange service, has teamed up with booking agency Mint Talent Group to set up a flexible reservation system that allows changes or cancellations at any time.

Under Lyte’s first agency-wide deal, Mint’s artists, including Taj Mahal and Angel Haze, will be able to use the ticketing platform to offer fans “risk-free” passes as part of a new course for post-COVID touring business.

The agreement includes an initial group of thirty artists, represented by Mint, implementing the technology across hundreds of potential shows.

Under agreement, fans of Mint Talent Group artists choose the market and tickets they are interested in and use their credit card to secure a flexible reservation that can be changed or cancelled at any time. When tickets that match their reservation criteria become available, orders are fulfilled, in partnership with venue ticketing platforms.

Lyte explains that the system provides fans flexibility and convenience, while artists get demand signals from markets around the world, and agents and their promoter partners get the insight they need to route tours with lower risk.

Patrick McAuliff, one of Mint’s founding agents, said: “Mint exists to put artists first and we recognise kindred spirits in Lyte, who has a team dedicated to giving us the tools we need to get our artists back to work safely and with winning economics.

“By capturing fan demand before we launch a tour, we can now have a true metric of demand at a specific moment to help book an artist in the right venue using scientific precision. This will only improve outcomes for everyone involved – buyer, seller, artist and fan.”

Mint Talent Group was founded in 2020 by a group of veteran agents from CAA, William Morris Endeavor, and Paradigm.

The ticketing technology platform offers customers who were unable to purchase primary market tickets the opportunity to buy tickets returned by original purchasers who ultimately cannot go. Customers seeking tickets may join an event’s official waitlist and customers whose plans have changed may securely return their purchased tickets.

Lawrence Peryer, Lyte’s chief strategy officer, added: “This is a milestone deal at the vanguard of a post-COVID touring business. In this new world, Lyte is facilitating closer relationships between artists and fans and giving superstar agents like those at Mint the tools to truly partner with promoters in a meaningful, sophisticated way.”

The announcement follows Lyte last month securing an additional $5m in Series B funding, which brings its total to $38m. The funding round, which was initially announced in December, is a combination of equity and debt, and brings the four-year-old firm’s overall financing to date to $53m.

Image: Lyte