Event Genius and BPM begin partnership with successful cashless festival

September saw our operations team head to the beautiful beaches of Portimão, in Portugal’s Algarve region, to manage access control and cashless payments for thousands of festival-goers at BPM Festival 2019.

BPM prides itself on bringing phenomenal DJ line-ups to sandy beaches around the world, and Portugal is very much a torchbearer for this idea. The 2019 edition saw the likes of Jamie Jones, Seth Troxler, Patrick Topping and the Martinez Brothers grace the long stretch of golden beach that makes up Praia da Rocha at venues including NoSoloÁgua and Blanco Beach clubs.

Client Requirements

The BPM Portugal team required an end-to-end solution for ticketing, access control and payments. As such, Event Genius was able to provide ticket sales through the Ticket Arena website and app and via the Event Genius ticket widget, which allows clients to add the ticket checkout process directly to their website.

In addition to ticketing, BPM wanted a single supplier for access control and cashless payments, for which we deployed our Entry Genius access control application and Event Genius Pay cashless RFID solution. Support teams were on-site throughout the festival to provide training and ensure everything ran smoothly.

Ticket Arena and Event Genius supplied:

• Ticket sales via the Ticket Arena website and app
• Ticket sales via the Event Genius ticket widget on the BPM website
• Pre-event marketing and support
• Dedicated account management
• 250 cashless payment devices
• Event Genius Pay cashless payment infrastructure
• Entry Genius access control solution
• On-site support team
• Online refund portal
• Full data collection and post-event reporting

Event Genius successfully deployed its access control solution - Entry Genius - along with the provision of scanning equipment, staff training and ongoing on-site support across the festival, with several thousand people moving between stages each day. A wristband exchange was set up where customers could exchange their digital or printed tickets - day or weekend passes - for a wristband which granted entry to all five festival venues.

BPM’s decision to go cashless with Event Genius Pay was an immediate success. In the months leading up to the festival, customers buying tickets could also pre-purchase cashless vouchers for the event, which led to a significant proportion of festival revenue being accrued before the event.

Customers who had pre-purchased cashless vouchers could redeem these at the wristband exchange after having their tickets scanned. A voucher was scanned by staff, and the corresponding value loaded onto the RFID chip located on the festival wristband. Fans could then use this wristband to pay for drinks, food and merchandise with a simple tap of their wrist, speeding up the time taken to be served by up to 80% when compared with cash or contactless transactions.

Those fans who hadn’t pre-purchased credit, or those going back for more, could top up their wristband credit using any of the ten top up locations around the festival using cash or card. A refund portal was set up to allow customers to claim back their remaining credit after the festival.

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