Contactless palaver at Lollapalooza
This weekend was the debut of the Lollapalooza Festival Berlin with 90,000 attendees. It was the first time that the famous US music festival has made an appearance outside of the States. Being a Berlin resident and attempting to overcompensate for my advancing years, I took my wife and kids to it. Nothing earth-shattering about that. What was interesting (to me, at least) though is that is was one of the first time contactless payments had made their way into a major mainstream musical festival in Germany’s capital.
The message that greeted would-be festival goers on the website was; “Lollapalooza 2015 will be cashless only! Why, you ask? It’s more convenient, safer, faster and you can spend more time in front of the stages instead of waiting in line at the ATM machines. You’ll just swipe your wristband and the next beer, Handbrot or merch will be yours. You can even top up your wristband at home, avoid going to one of our cashless points and start the festival weekend right away once you enter Tempelhof. In case the credit on your wristband is running low, our cashless points will be waiting for you nearby where you can top up your wristband chip anytime.”
The festival director for the German Lollapalooza, Fruzsina Szep, works for the Hörstmann Group, which also stages the Melt! and Splash! festivals in Germany. Szep is an old hand at mass events. For eight years, the Hungarian organized the Sziget Festival, a major European festival that annually lures 400,000 visitors to an island in Budapest. A festival that pioneered cashless festival-going a few years back. with a consortium including Cellum and its partner Cardnet and introducing a system known as Festipay. The system at the time used both cards and “smart” wristbands, and was aimed at minimizing the risks and costs associated with cash payments, as well as giving the organizers a better ability to monitor payments made to concessionaires. It worked and this and other similar systems hav a growing acceptance at other large scale events around Europe.
However, to say that there is a need of a massive public education campaign to convert the German public to the benefits of contactless payments is a gross understatement if what i have been reading on the social media networks have anything to to do with it. Tweets and posts were flying thick and fast about the audacity of the organisers to even consider not taking cash on the day for concession stands - utilising the now ‘de rigeur’ contactless payment wristband that other festivals around Europe are using. Some festival goers wouldn’t be seen dead without one!
Because this is Germany and data protection is taken very seriously here, the festival organisers were keen to stress how the data would be secured and where it could be accessed and by who; “Any transaction you make – topping up your wristband or purchasing food or drinks – will show up in your festival account. That means you’re not entirely anonymous. However, you don’t have to worry about your personal data. All data saved in your festival account will be kept under wraps. We neither create movement profiles of festival goers nor do we hand over or sell data to partners or sponsors. We protect all your data according to current data protection regulations.”
Monitoring the event on social media has been quite an eye-opener when it comes to discovering feedback from those who should really constitute a target audience for contactless payments. Fundamentally this could be summed up as a lack of understanding, coupled with deep suspicion, covered with a thick layer of pessimism and confusions.
For example, Andre (full names withheld for data protection purposes!) is concerned that any left over cash may never be recovered in case of bankruptcy: "This system didn't work at Hurricane and I can confirm that Northside in DK didn't get it to work either. Now they got rid of it.... But I don’t like that this information (cashless) was revealed only 2 1/2 weeks before the Festival. I think that Security and Data Protection Laws dictate that the financial processing is done by a regulated body. What happens if I load up as much as 300 Euro and then the festival organizers goes bust? I would lose my money.
Carlos is less prosaic: “Damn, this sucks. I want to pay cash. So much hassle. Are staff too stupid to do simple cashier jobs or do they just want to get more data?” Desiree is less adamant, “Not nice to be told so casually about the cashless process. Let's see if it works, until now I have only heard negative things.” Eren is all for cashless, “Interesting! Germany really tries to fight against technological progress. It’s the year 2015. I am all for convenience and happy if it speeds up everything. And it’s good that you get any left-over money back afterwards.”
Marc was worried about his bank account details and doesn't realise that you can also bring cash and have it uploaded on the wristband, while Anna, Sam und Karolina were asking in a panic for drinks and food prices for calculations. Why? Because it’s a cashless event. Wouldn't they have to do the same calculating if they brought cash?
The international crowd is more relaxed. John (from the UK) commented, “This is great!” However, Jens was very suspicious, “Why do you want to know what I drink? Why do i need to wear money on my wrist? Which idiot thought of contactless? You are unprofessional and greedy.” Bit harsh, I thought…
All in all, I really believe that if these kind of comments (and trust me, we had a lot to choose from), are anything to go by, Germany really need a massive educational campaign on the benefits of contactless payment technology and the benefits behind them. Contactless payments at festivals through out the rest of Europe is now considered standard. After going through a painless top-up system and seeing it in use throughout various concession stall with almost no hiccups, I feel that the anticipation before using such payment technology is worse than the actuality.
This technology is normal in almost all of the major festivals around Europe now and it is only the lack on contactless payment exposure in Germany that really highlights how far behind Germany has lagged in this payment area. The festival was great but the over-all score for contactless Germany: ‘could (and needs to) do better’.
Good thing about festivals though, sooner or later any gripes are forgotten as soon as the toilets malfunction. Once that happens all other news is swept under the rug! Same goes for Lollapalooza Berlin…
Until next time,
Steve Atkins
Contactless Intelligence
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