Pollstar
Changing Lanes Panel At Pollstar Live! ‘The Pandemic Ushered In The Era Of The Digital Fan’
by Sarah Pittman on Pollstar.com, June 21, 2021
With COVID-19 restrictions bringing traditional touring to a halt, taking advantage of opportunities and a go-getter, seize-the-day attitude has been the name of the game for music executives that managed to find success during the pandemic.
“I wouldn’t say we changed so much as we accelerated,” Peryer, who was promoted to the role of Chief Strategy Officer at Lyte in January, said when asked by moderator and Tixr founder/CEO Robert Davari about how each panelist’s companies had adapted and changed their strategies during the pandemic.
“Business either battered down the hatches and cut, cut, cut to make it through, or you invested or you went away. Early on we decided we were going to make it and we invested. It allowed us to sharpen our focus. It changed how we thought about the world and how we fit into the ecosystem. We don’t want people to buy tickets, we want people to experience live events. That’s a broad, mushy vision but it means it should be as fun to acquire your ticket as it it to go to the event. Some people love buying clothes and sneakers – it should be fun [buying tickets].
The whole experience should be as good as the thing on stage. You shouldn’t have to go through seven circles of hell to go to the show.”
Earlier in the discussion Peryer said the biggest thing Lyte learned is that operating a platform whose ethos is about giving users and rights holders flexibility comes in handy during a pandemic.
“The ability for fans to get their money back quickly or roll their tickets over, or let fans make reservations and get in line before they know when events were coming back – that gave people hope,” Peryer said. “On socials fans would say, ‘I’m going to so and so event, we just have to get through this.’ We made a decision very early on, any time we talked to one of our partners or people in the outside world, ask them what are you worried about? After a few weeks of doing that, what we needed to do became clear – our policies, how we manage money. That helped us get through the pandemic and come out the other side.”
