‘The War on Cash’ in environments such as Sports Stadiums and Live Events is now a priority. In the majority of Stadiums, Arenas and ‘green-field’ sites cash is not just a minor inconvenience, it represents a major problem in terms of counting, pricing and change requirement, reconciliation, transaction times and, not least, security and potential theft.

Most ‘event-related’ cashless solutions deployed to date have been developed outside the mainstream financial sector, and are typically based on ‘closed-loop’ solutions which are usable only within the stadium or event arena. In Europe as a whole, the growth of such cashless ‘e-money’ has been a feature of the past two years but several high profile disasters and the lack of a convincing and compelling solution have prevented mass adoption.

GPRS payment terminals, historically deployed at festivals and events where conditions are potentially challenging, have typically provided a very poor customer experience with significant delays being experienced when authorising transactions. This has resulted in a real lack of confidence in card payments by the industry.

Intelligent Venue Solutions (IVS) and their acquiring partner Global Payments have, since 2012, delivered numerous projects to better understand ’payments’ within the festivals and events market and to lay the foundation for a wider adoption of contactless ‘open-loop’ EMV accredited payments.

The deployment of a fast and reliable contactless card acceptance infrastructure, linked via ‘hard wire’ or local wireless mesh network to an ADSL connection to the acquirer, has been proven to deliver a fast and robust solution. A solution which has laid the foundation for the integration of new payment brands including Apple Pay. However, in the events business, solving the payments issue in isolation is not enough.

There is no doubt that ‘contactless’ will become the mainstream form of future payments but this needs to be part of a drive to a better understanding of event customers and to the development of methods to better communicate directly with them as part of an overall integrated solution.

Delivering a ‘triple-play’ integrated payments, entitlement and engagement solution is the goal for all event owners, managers and promoters, as part of a combined customer experience and management information platform.  Within the industry generally there is a need and desire to increase per head spend, to create new revenue sources and to assist brand partners and commercial sponsors to make use of interaction with visitors before, during and after the event.

‘Wearables’ will have a significant impact on the event industry as part of this drive towards better customer understanding. Wristbands are already a feature of the event world and the integration of payment, access and activation/engagement technology in the drive to remove the anonymous nature of event ticketing and attendance will enhance the value of events for all.

Companies such as Digiseq’, an IVS partner, are already forging ahead with ‘tokenised’ wristband contactless payment and activation with chips that combine all of the ‘triple-play’ components. The addition of social media integration provides further event enjoyment and experience enhancement potential.

The full opportunity of contactless payments, as an integral part of the event experience is now available to provide a compelling, integrated solution for future mass adoption for example; Twickenham has demonstrated convincingly the benefits of a fully integrated and contactless infrastructure.

Within the Stadium environment future events may become a totally immersive experience for fans, event organisers and commercial organisations alike with benefits to all parties. The technology is available now and the inexorable drive towards further use of smart mobiles will only ‘personalise’ that experience further.