Kicking off our ‘summer of contactless’ at The Great Escape and joining forces with the Association Of Independent Festivals

We started the 2013 festival season with a bang in Brighton for The Great Escape, one of Europe’s largest and most exciting live music showcase festivals and conventions.

As a speaker at the daytime conference, IVS co-founder Paul Pike illuminated delegates on the many incredible ways that RFID and other contactless technologies are already reshaping the live events industries.

From there it was down to the seafront to join forces with The Association Of Independent Festivals for a live demonstration of its contactless technology at the AIF’s ‘Festivals Meet Agents’ networking event and 5^th Birthday celebrations, at the Thistle Hotel.

Enabled by IVS’ In-Site cashless event system, in collaboration with ID&C, all attendees were given RFID wristbands pre-loaded with £10 credit which could be spent at the bar. Big screens inside the venue showed real-time access and transaction data.

Paul Pike speaking at The Great Escape

Claire O’Neill, General Manger of the Association if Independent Festivals commented: “It was a great addition to AIF’s 5th birthday event to have IVS’ preloaded RFID wristbands for the bar. We expect to see more of our members using this technology over the coming years and it was a useful occasion to try it out. Seeing the real-time access and transaction data brought home the potential on-site benefits of RFID.”

Paul Pike, IVS co-founder and director commented: “With a very exciting series of contactless-enabled music and sport events ahead of us this summer, what better way to kick it all off than an RFID-powered visit to The Great Escape? It was a pleasure to meet so many independent festival organisers and great to see that the sector is so eager to embrace this technology. We look forward to announcing further collaborations with the AIF and its members.”