Contactless payments

[stopwn1981]

Discussed before no doubt, but any intel of card and contactless payments this year at bars/food outlets. Surely it’s coming sooner, rather than later?

[stuartbert two hats]

Do you mean a breakdown per outlet? I doubt that is coming. I think the WBC have been accepting contactless for a few festivals now and I'd expect it to be widely available, but still pack plenty of cash.

[sedra]

It will depend how reliable the wi-fi or 4g connection is - some traders had difficulty with card payments. Take a mix of card and cash - keep any large amount of cash in lock ups and just take some out each day or there are free ATM machines up by the welfare/medical near the farmhouse. Hopefully the Signal will be sufficient to keep all e devices accessible but I wouldn’t rely on it! 

[Beerqueen]

At Bearded Theory my card didn't work one time - I assume a connection problem.  So as others have said, I definitely wouldn't rely 100% on using a card.  

[glasto-worker]

5 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Do you mean a breakdown per outlet? I doubt that is coming. I think the WBC have been accepting contactless for a few festivals now and I'd expect it to be widely available, but still pack plenty of cash.

WBC is testing a new system at 3 or 4 bars { unlikely they will be the large ones } this year.

Now this is a claimed hard wired system unlike the portable system that we first tested over two weeks in Hyde Park in 2006.

The portable system had a few flaws - battery life was very short so for most of the time most were charging hence why it was always a struggle to find one that was working.

it suffered by bad reception ' even in Hyde park '

I was at a recent planning meeting but they did not have any photos as to the equipment being installed but I believe it should be better # provided it does all that they claim #

there will also be a new till system which will be on trial.

Its a huge investment hence why all this has to be tried at a live festival and once feedback comes back they may then decide to extend them to all the bars if its a success.

-------

cash is still king so its best to assume that debit/credit cards will not be accepted by everyone.

[Losing my hair]

I would not assume that everywhere will accept card payments so I would have at least half of my expected expenditure in cash lodged at the Lock-ups

Working at  Bearded Theory we had a wi-fi signal most of the time but then it would just disappear and we were reduced to walking around outside with the card machine in the air trying to get a signal - for those old enough to remember it was like trying to move the TV aerial to get a picture. Admittedly the infrastructure at Glastonbury is better - and judging by the number of masts on the webcam, it will be much better this year - but the volume of traffic will be like a town centre at Christmas, so I don't think it will be 100% reliable.

Personally I will be leaving my card in the lock-up along with other valuables - keys, ticket home etc. and using cash which I'll keep in the lock-up and just take out what I need each day. This way if I lose my wallet then I've only lost 1 day's spending money.