London's Wireless Festival will be First Cashless Gig Get-together

London’s Wireless Festival will be First Cashless Gig Get-together

Written on May 16, 2012 by Jay Garrett in Festivals

We’ve all lost cash in a muddy field at some point. Barclaycard wants that to be a thing of the past and so is taking all of its contactless payment methods on the road to the Wireless Festival, making it the first cash-free music festival.

What to do with your cash (apart from drink it with the occasional burger for sustenance) is always a tricky thing at a festival. Have it always on you risking loosing it all in one stage-dive or in the pit or shove it somewhere cunning in your tent and pray that some s**t doesn’t help themselves to it whilst you’re out on an all-dayer.

Well my festival fans, this year you can leave your wallets and purses at home as the Barclaycard Wireless Festival will be the first event of its kind to go completely cashless.

I’m not saying that this will be a totally free fest (are you mad?) but, instead, vendors will all accept contactless payment in exchange for their wares.

Load up your Barclaycard PayBand, which looks like one of those rubber ’causes’ bracelets, with beer ‘n’ burger tokens before you set off to your chosen event when you want something just flash them at the bartender.

I’m talking about the PayBand, gutter-brain!

This negates the need for carrying currency and may even make the queues in the beer tent faster moving.

The sellers of cost-inflated booze and food will accept other swipe-to-pay methods like QuickTap, an NFC-based mobile payments solution from Barclaycard and Orange and BarclayCard PayTag which is basically a sticker that can be placed on the back of any mobile handset and works as an extension of a credit card.

Payments of up to £20 will be accepted using the payment methods and PayTag or PayBand users won’t have to enter a pin or sign their names either.

Tom Gregory, Head of Digital Payments at Barclaycard said: “We are immensely proud to be the first to go completely contactless and offer the choice of a cashless experience at London’s largest music festival. We’re really excited by the possibilities Barclaycard PayBand offers as a wearable, secure and easy way to pay when you’re out and about at the festival. Alongside QuickTap and Barclaycard PayTag, we’re exploring the versatility that contactless offers as an alternative to cash.”

Even though I’d rather use cash in the real world I think that this is a great idea for those lost weekends in a field. How about you?