Bestival and its sister event Camp Bestival are going cashless after agreeing a three-year deal with Tappit.
Festival-goers will use Tappit’s contactless payment wristbands for the first time, allowing them to experience faster and more secure transactions across the two events.
The move will also see Bestival and Camp Bestival gain insight into the habits of fans, which will enable them to enhance the customer experience in the future.
“Bestival has always been about escapism, creating an otherworldly wonderland, where you can leave all the stresses of real life behind”, said Bestival co-founder and curator Rob da Bank (pictured). “We think Tappit’s wristbands can be a big part of that, reducing queues and hassles and making things a bit more care-free for festivalgoers. They also give us the sort of real-time data insights that can help us with a lot of things like crowd management. We eventually foresee it all going totally cashless, which will make the whole Bestival experience even more easy going for everyone.”
While cashless payment systems have been successfully employed by numerous events across Europe, the UK has been a slow adopter. Download became the first major UK festival to go cashless in 2015, but got off to a shaky start due to "minor technical issues".
By going cashless, events have greater potential to eradicate transactional fraud and theft. The insights provided can also help address health and safety challenges through improved crowd flow and event management.
Tappit CEO Jason Thomas said: “The process of going cashless isn’t as costly, complicated or time-consuming as people may think. Working at a strategic level with Bestival, we’ve been able to establish a cashless payments infrastructure in less than a month. Event owners using tappit benefit from a proven return on investment, improved customer satisfaction and greater business insight."
The technology also enables event owners to analyse data with near real-time reports and notifications.
"We’ve worked with major events all around the world and we are looking forward to bringing this experience to two of the UK’s leading festivals,” added Thomas.
Bestival will be held at the Lulworth Estate, Dorset, from August 2-5, while Camp Bestival takes place at the same site this week, from July 26-29.
Click here to read Music Week's recent interview with Rob Da Bank.
