Future of festivals...

[duke88]

8 minutes ago, jannybruck said:

Presumably an app might also be involved so they can pre-pour.

They pre-pour the beers generally anyway when there's a constant stream of customers

[Ryan1984]

4 hours ago, found home in 2009 said:

"Meanwhile, all attendees will be allocated an “RFID wristband” which will eliminate the need for queuing and allow for cashless payments at drink and confectionery stands"

I'd be quite happy for that to stay the norm going forward. Obviously you'd need some kind of back up in place in case the system went down though

They used this at 2000 Trees and it worked really well. Helped the stall holders a lot as well!

[Toilet Duck]

18 hours ago, Waterdeep said:

Fair play to these folks for taking the chance and making an effort, hope they can pull it off.

https://nialler9.com/wild-roots-announces-kaiser-chiefs-damien-dempsey-soda-blonde-daithi-booka-shade-for-covid-19-compliant-sligo-festival-in-2021/

A COVID compliant King Kong Company gig...I've heard it all now! (If you haven't seen them live, check them out if they turn up at a festie you are at in the future...absolute mayhem...)

 

 

[balthazarstarbuck]

3 hours ago, incident said:

You can already have cashless payments by just asking people to use Contactless using the cards and devices that nearly everyone already has in their pockets.

The RFID wristband+wallet concept has been around for a ages now and is absolutely nothing to do with H+S. It's all about letting the festival or their partner control peoples wallets and the transactions between customers and stallholders.

I'm yet to see an implementation of this that actually improved anything. Download was the most notable festival to try it a few years ago and abandoned it after a litany of complaints. And at least a couple of festival owners ran off with the money leaving their stall holders out of pocket.

Fully agree with this. Punching down a bit but Fyre Festival were also looking to use something similar. Seems nothing more than a cash grab. 

[Simsy]

4 hours ago, found home in 2009 said:

"Meanwhile, all attendees will be allocated an “RFID wristband” which will eliminate the need for queuing and allow for cashless payments at drink and confectionery stands"

I'd be quite happy for that to stay the norm going forward. Obviously you'd need some kind of back up in place in case the system went down though

I went to Sziget a few years ago & they had a similar thing. I think it charged a fee every time you topped up and you could only get a certain amount of credit back if you didn't spend it.

I just used contactless credit card, much easier (as long as your bank doesn't screw you with foreign transaction fees). There's not really any need for special RFID wristbands, other than for the few people who don't use contactless cards.

[danbailey80]

Yep just use google pay on your phone. Everyone has a phone. 

[Crazyfool01]

26 minutes ago, danbailey80 said:

Yep just use google pay on your phone. Everyone has a phone. 

There goes the use of the classic Nokia that everyone has kicking around in a drawer somewhere ... I’m full of good intentions about taking mine back to the festival one day ... but not sure I could deal with the limit of 10 messages or playing snake game whilst I wait for my friend to wake up 

[balthazarstarbuck]

9 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

There goes the use of the classic Nokia that everyone has kicking around in a drawer somewhere ... I’m full of good intentions about taking mine back to the festival one day ... but not sure I could deal with the limit of 10 messages or playing snake game whilst I wait for my friend to wake up 

I have for the last few years, primarily so I don’t have to stress about battery life or take 4 battery packs with me. It gets a surprising amount of comments.  I think Nokia does a brick with WhatsApp now, which Id be tempted by.

[Crazyfool01]

Just now, balthazarstarbuck said:

I have for the last few years, primarily so I don’t have to stress about battery life or take 4 battery packs with me. It gets a surprising amount of comments.  I think Nokia does a brick with WhatsApp now, which Id be tempted by.

I take almost as many battery packs as I do ciders .... no worrys on that score for me  ...... wonder if that nokia has NFC 

[Mash2]

I've been to multiple festivals here in the states that have tried the wrist band payment approach and they have universally sucked.  I'm sure the original motivation was to make more money (and not convenience).  If the festivals just used Google/Apple pay that would have been fine but the ones that I have seen use this approach have tried to use a custom debit card style process where you had to load cash onto your chip/wrist band.  Typically, they had a complicated process for loading/adding cash into your wrist band and the payment systems at the booth required custom reader software.  As a result, festival attendees and vendors both struggled with the system leading to......

longer lines and very frustrated vendors and customers.

[Suprefan]

14 hours ago, balthazarstarbuck said:

Fully agree with this. Punching down a bit but Fyre Festival were also looking to use something similar. Seems nothing more than a cash grab. 

Fyre did it to get that money from attendees so they had more to steal, not to ensure buying stuff would be easier.

 

The scam is that they want you to top up your wristband so that you forget it has money in it later. After the festival ends theres a window of time that you have to cash your money out of it and have it returned to your bank account. Once that has passed the festival keeps what is left. the terms of service say so. Plenty of festivals in the U.S. have used that tactic to just come up with thousands of extra dollars in money they never had to fight you to spend. Or even made it difficult to let you get your money back.

 

The main thing that has to be in place is reliable infrastructure so if the internet is going to be shite with 150,000 people then whats the point of even doing it at all.

 

this is why I only take and use cash at a festival. I at least know how much I have and am not bleeding my bank account dry for no reason. Only ever use a  card if its for expensive merchandise/poster. 

Coachella integrated merchandise purchases through their app last year and it was a breeze. They had such terrible queues to buy everything else that it was just the easiest solution. They only had their own merch for sale so you selected what you wanted and paid for it. You would be notified when it was ready and you skipped the queue to a pick up area and were done within 2 minutes. Of course only downside was you had to wait in line to buy artist specific merch but its a trade off for some convinience.

[foolee]

The only time I've ever had it was at Nova Rock Festival. For the most part it worked quite well and I enjoyed it as it was easy however as mentioned above it is a way to get more money out of you and no easier than using a bank card or apple pay. The hardest part was actually trying to top up the wristband as the queues as you would imagine were huge on the first day of the festival and you had to do it this day otherwise you can't eat or drink in the arena. It also didn't eliminate queuing as I remember queuing numerous times for food and drinks. It was quite easy to get this back the day after the festival as I went to the stand and they gave me the cash left on my wristband but I'm not sure how easy that would be if you forgot to take it back and I think not all the stands were open.

A bad experience I've had at Slam Dunk before although not using wristband technology it was more to do with the wifi at the event. Obviously contactless card requires wifi at the venue however the contactless wifi was terrible therefore the payment didn't go through and my card was blocked for using it too many times. Okay, partially my fault for not bringing cash or getting any out however prior to the festival taking place they stated there was a cash machine on site however on the day the cash machine was not there. It took us a while to figure out why the card wasn't working and then phoned our bank to get them to unblock the card. It doesn't help there are cash only and/or card only vendors at Slam Dunk.

[Crazyfool01]

I reckon we might all get electronic wristbands this year to remove some of the scams around entry and exit ... as had previously happened with workers and to speed things up after a   2 year gap this should work quite well , can’t see the cashless thing with 200,000 needing to add money 💰 initially and top up aswell 

[Crazyfool01]

For positive signs of next year have a look in resale thread ... glastonbury talking about resales on the website  

[found home in 2009]

23 hours ago, incident said:

You can already have cashless payments by just asking people to use Contactless using the cards and devices that nearly everyone already has in their pockets.

The RFID wristband+wallet concept has been around for a ages now and is absolutely nothing to do with H+S. It's all about letting the festival or their partner control peoples wallets and the transactions between customers and stallholders.

I'm yet to see an implementation of this that actually improved anything. Download was the most notable festival to try it a few years ago and abandoned it after a litany of complaints. And at least a couple of festival owners ran off with the money leaving their stall holders out of pocket.

To be fair, back in the day I absolutely hated when T in the Park made it so you had to buy tokens to use at bars. They always closed the bars quite early on a Sunday to so there would be a point you'd go to get a drink and it would be double frustration. Not only could you not get a drink, but you'd also realise that you now had completely useless tokens that you'd wasted your money on.

The RFID idea appealed to me as I don't have a contactless card and wouldn't feel secure owning one, but I wouldn't mind being able to pay contactlessly for one weekend at a festival.

[Crazyfool01]

1 minute ago, found home in 2009 said:

To be fair, back in the day I absolutely hated when T in the Park made it so you had to buy tokens to use at bars. They always closed the bars quite early on a Sunday to so there would be a point you'd go to get a drink and it would be double frustration. Not only could you not get a drink, but you'd also realise that you now had completely useless tokens that you'd wasted your money on.

The RFID idea appealed to me as I don't have a contactless card and wouldn't feel secure owning one, but I wouldn't mind being able to pay contactlessly for one weekend at a festival.

Try a Revolut card ... you can top those up and they work on the same basis ... and u have the safety net of being able to use it after .... 

[mike46]

TGE with all kinds of positive vibes 

[Fuzzy Afro]

I’m fairly certain there will be festivals in some way, shape or form in summer 2021. Perhaps it will only be one day events with mass testing. 

[Brave Sir Robin]

3 hours ago, mike46 said:

TGE with all kinds of positive vibes 

Great to see a fest - and an indoor one at that - confident of going ahead some 6 weeks before Glasto.

[nicknickmm]

I definitely see festivals happening next year but I can't imagine how a festival the size of Glastonbury will be able to go ahead. It's bad enough getting on to site as it is and with all the extra measures like testing etc might make it too difficult. 

Do people expect mandatory vaccination to enter the event? (would include all artists and staff) and expect a bit more social distancing? Theres not much space on a Glastonbury Thursday but i'm sure that can be managed by opening up all the areas earlier.

[bennyhana22]

1 minute ago, nicknickmm said:

I definitely see festivals happening next year but I can't imagine how a festival the size of Glastonbury will be able to go ahead. It's bad enough getting on to site as it is and with all the extra measures like testing etc might make it too difficult. 

Do people expect mandatory vaccination to enter the event? (would include all artists and staff) and expect a bit more social distancing? Theres not much space on a Glastonbury Thursday but i'm sure that can be managed by opening up all the areas earlier.

It can't and won't happen until it's agreed that social distancing is no longer required. It's just not logistically possible to run any sort of event wherein the continuous movement of 100s of 1000s of people is entirely 'random', and also expect to be able to distance them.

I can't even begin to imagine a second Glastonbury in a row being cancelled and I am crossing everything for a scenario in which we will all be there in June 2021. But that will only happen if societal movement of people is back to normal with no mask use needed. Anything other than that and it's game over. Sorry

Ben
x

[stt11]

6 minutes ago, nicknickmm said:

I definitely see festivals happening next year but I can't imagine how a festival the size of Glastonbury will be able to go ahead. It's bad enough getting on to site as it is and with all the extra measures like testing etc might make it too difficult. 

Do people expect mandatory vaccination to enter the event? (would include all artists and staff) and expect a bit more social distancing? Theres not much space on a Glastonbury Thursday but i'm sure that can be managed by opening up all the areas earlier.

I suppose this all means that 5000 people festivals will be the in thing. They don’t know how long the vaccines last, either. So, if your older, your going to reason that it would be safer to go to smaller festivals. Otherwise you’ll be one of the vaccine  guinea pigs.

[xxialac]

There's zero chance most of the population is vaccinated by June so can rule that out as being a condition to entry.

Testing is the key

[zahidf]

 

New crystal Palace festivals approved.

[incident]

Just now, zahidf said:

 

New crystal Palace festivals approved.

Wondering if that's Wireless etc moving from Finsbury because of all the ludicrous restrictions that have been imposed?