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Live Nation considering cashless Download

By | Published on Wednesday 11 February 2009

This is interesting, Live Nation UK, doing proper work while their US superiors dabble in the world of mergers and acquisitions, have said they may launch super duper wrist bands at this year’s Download festival which could make the event cashless.

Punters would be able to ‘charge up’ their wristbands at the start of the festival, and then pay for food and drink and the likes by swiping their wrists over a clever device. The aim is to remove those common festival anxieties that you’ll lose all your cash to the mud in the mosh pit, or that the scruffy looking reveller on your left is about to pickpocket all your dosh.

Any use of the system at this year’s Download would probably be a pilot for future roll out at other major events staged by the live music conglom.

The company’s COO, John Probyn, told Music Week: “Basically a band with a built-in computer chip can be credited with money. Similar systems already exist – my golf club has it and universities have it – but it hasn’t been used at a major outdoor festival, so we’ll hopefully give it a limited trial at Download”.

“If you can imagine all the tills that you have at a festival – for food, drink, merchandise and concession stalls, fair rides, etc – you’re talking about a significant outlay to get everything working in sync. [But] there’s an obvious benefit for security, because if kids aren’t carrying cash you can cut down on theft, and if they lose the wristband it can be cancelled immediately with a new one issued on site, credited with the same amount of money”.

Probyn also reckons the system may be popular with parents of teenagers going to festivals, because it will mean they can have more control on how their kids spend their money (I think they can limit how much goes on alcohol over food, and unless dealers are getting very high tech, lunch money can’t be spent on dope).

Companies running the food and drink stalls are also seemingly supportive of the proposals, even if it requires some initial investment in new kit, because less cash on their stalls means less chance of dodgy temp staff helping themselves to the money.



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