Eurosonic partners with PlayPass
Eurosonic Noorderslag (ESNS), Europe’s largest showcase festival for emerging talent, has partnered with cashless payment provider PlayPass.
Festivalgoers, delegates and artists will be able to make payments at all 42 ESNS locations using an NFC wristband, mobile wallet or payment card. All payment options will be accepted on a single, PlayPass-provided point-of-sale device.
Each attendee will be issued with a personalised, electronic wristband upon registration at the event. Funds can be loaded onto the wristband via PlayPass self-service top-up kiosks or the Payconiq mobile application for visitors from the Netherlands and Belgium.
PlayPass will also invite event organisers attending ESNS to take a behind-the-scenes look at its technology and operations.
“We are very proud to become a partner to Eurosonic Noorderslag and are extremely excited to be showcasing new capabilities at such a prestigious event”, says David De Wever, CEO and co-founder of PlayPass.
“We believe that the features we are presenting at Eurosonic will be a true game-changer for the live events industry”
“We believe that the features we are presenting at Eurosonic will be a true game-changer for the live events industry and we look forward to showing promoters how they can yield significant gains, both financial and in visitor loyalty, through intelligent use of our technology and the invaluable data it generates.”
“ESNS believes it is important to lead the way in innovations in the music industry,” says Dago Houben, managing director of ESNS, which first introduced cashless payments in 2013.
“It is now time to make the next step and improve on every aspect. With the state-of-the-art system that PlayPass provides, we feel confident improving the quality of payments and services on all levels and for all involved,” adds Houben.
ESNS 2019 attracted over 42,000 guests from 44 countries, including 4,100 conference delegates and representatives from 423 festivals. The event showcased 342 acts across more than 40 stages.
The 35th of edition of ESNS will take place from 15 to 18 January 2020, with a special emphasis on the Swiss music scene. Conference tickets are available here at the late rate of €365.
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BookMyShow invests in cashless ticketer AtomX
BookMyShow, India’s largest online ticketing company, has invested in payment technology startup AtomX in order to leverage its cashless payment platform at live entertainment events.
The investment will allow BookMyShow to seamlessly enable AtomX’s cashless solutions at its events, using near-field communication (NFC) cards, wristbands and key chains.
Launched in 2012 by Abhilash Gowdara, Pune-based AtomX claims to have processed more than half a million transactions in India, totalling over US$6.5 million. The company produces close-loop contactless, NFC-based payment technology.
“We are extremely excited about the contactless technology penetration in India and the future of the country as it rapidly moves towards a cashless society,” says Abhilash Gowdara, founder and chief executive of AtomX.
“We are looking to unify both online and offline payments, enabling live entertainment events to accept contactless bank-issued cards beyond our close-loop tags”
“We are looking to unify both online and offline payments, enabling live entertainment events to accept contactless bank-issued cards beyond our close-loop tags which offer users multiple options to tap and pay at all our live events,” adds Gowdara.
Ashish Hemrajani, founder and chief executive officer BookMyShow, states the ticketing company is continually improving its customer service, which “includes safer and smoother digital transactions both while buying tickets and for on-ground services.
“We also strive to provide relevant data analytics, insights around events to vendors and organisers to better deliver the experience to our customers. Our partnership with AtomX will play an instrumental role in furthering this experience,” says the BookMyShow boss.
BookMyShow has received a total of US$224.5m since 2007, most recently securing $100m in an investment round led by Creative Artists Agency owner TPG. According to the International Ticketing Yearbook 2018, the company has a virtual monopoly of India’s online ticketing market, with a 78% market share.
The leading Indian ticketing company has plans to grow internationally over the next few years, recently announcing its first venture into international sales, in the form of the London West End production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s musical The King and I.
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Why NFC cashless is the future of payments at events
Contactless is now the leading payment method in everyday life, much to the glee of the banking sector that controls and feeds off it, but live events have a much more powerful – and lucrative – alternative available to them.
NFC technology allows smart event owners to run their own ‘closed loop’ financial eco-system, which leaves the banks outside the front gates and gives the event full and direct ownership of every payment transaction taking place on site, with no middlemen siphoning off the data and charging a commission.
Benefits are concentrated with the event and its visitors rather than a third-party financial institution that has not shared any of the promoter’s risk in putting on the event.
These include:
- Greater spend per head: UK festivals last year reported a 24% increase in bar spend per head as a result of going fully cashless with PlayPass.
- Higher customer satisfaction: 92% of visitors surveyed by Standon Calling, the UK’s first ever music festival to go cashless, find PlayPass easier and more convenient than other payment methods, and 89% would prefer not to bring any cash or cards to an event.
- Visibility and ownership of all transactional data: More event owners recognise the importance of data and claiming ownership of transactional insights will pay dividends, particularly in establishing fairer deals with traders and concessions.
- Increased efficiencies and reduced costs: From validating tickets to staffing a bar, a scanner device is significantly quicker than a person, eliminates theft and human error and gives average savings of 4% compared to non-cashless events. Unlike contactless, PlayPass’s NFC system works fully offline by writing to the chip.
- Reduced crime and better security: A lost NFC tag can be replaced on site in seconds with the balance intact. Traders, who often employ unknown casual staff, don’t have to worry about theft from the cash register. Event organisers no longer need to worry about forged tickets or passes.
- Improved sustainability: PlayPass’s NFC payment system has a lot of powerful, automated features designed to streamline on-site recycling initiatives, account for carbon travel costs and reward visitors for ecologically minded behaviour.
- Drives pre–event upsells and earlybird ticket sales: Eventgoers can purchase items pre-event or give post-event options to convert unspent funds into a down payment on next year’s ticket, keeping the money in the event’s pot whilst providing value to the customer.
- Traders prefer it: Cashless gets traders’ thumbs up, due to higher-spending crowds, the elimination of cash management, no risk of theft and automated reconciliation contributing to improved festival experience… and profit.
- Better for cash flow: Events that offer pre-loading capabilities benefit from receiving this revenue before the event has started. UK festivals working with PlayPass receive around 80% of their total food and beverage revenue ahead of the event.
- A haven from a bank-controlled world: Festival culture has always been synonymous with escaping from the real world – owning your data and transactions promotes independence and freedom.
The world over, progressive event brands are now embracing PlayPass’s NFC cashless solutions and taking control of their on-site economies without a backward glance.
For more information about taking control of your event’s financial ecosystem with a closed-loop NFC payment solution, visit the PlayPass website.
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