Kevin Lyman has shaped youth culture for over 45 years with his award winning expertise in the music and entertainment industry as well as business and philanthropic ventures. Lyman is best known as the creator of the Vans Warped Tour, which ran from 1995-2019, which can be considered one of the most socially influential music tours in the United States. In 2025 he partnered with Insomniac events to bring back the show in selected cities domestically with international dates to be added in 2026.
He pioneered the successful integration of corporate sponsors with the extreme lifestyle, creating a blueprint for sponsorship integration widely duplicated in the marketplace today. Kevin’s production agency, KLG fuses this blueprint to produce some of the most influential events in the world including branded festivals and custom events.
Lately he has been involving himself with lifestyle start-ups like Saint Archer Brewery, Good Dye Young, Veep’s, Villager Products, Skip and Beat Box beverages.
After the Vans Warped, he began teaching as an Associate Professor at the University of Sothern California and is finishing his 8th year on campus.
For his philanthropic efforts, Lyman was recognized as the Billboard Touring Awards Humanitarian of the Year (2009), an honoree at the Grammy/MusiCares MAP Fund Gala (2011 and 2014), was inducted into the Top Dog Touring Hall of Fame at the Tour Link Conference (2012) and will receive the TJ Martell Foundation Humanitarian Award (2016). Humanitarian Award Billboard touring awards (2018), (2018) Fest Forum) person of the year, inducted into the IEBA Hall of Fame (2019) and recently received the Billboard’s Visionary award in (2025.)
In 2020 he has joined the board of Ivoted, The Music Sustainabilty Conferecne as well as leading his foundation United the United https://www.unitetheunited.com/
In his spare time, he spends much of his time with his wife living the road life through his new passion Van life.
