A lot of rock festivals are going “cashless” with electronic pre-payment cards for all financial transactions on site. A big downside is the way it introduces a single point of failure that can cause things to go seriosuly pear-shaped when you have large volumes of people, with the worst case scenario being tens of thousands of people unable to buy food or drink.
And when it does, people will live-tweet the fiasco on social media.
.@hellfestopenair off to a shit start. Queueing for ages+nowhere near front to collect cashless payment card. Not enough staff. Bullshit.
— Alex (@JudgeDewie) June 19, 2015
Now they closed 2 windows. Utter bullshit. Baking and cannot buy any drinks and going to miss bands @hellfestopenair pic.twitter.com/RtXQJyXlDK
— Alex (@JudgeDewie) June 19, 2015
Why didn't I preorder a cashless card? I did. With credit on. It never came. So I have to queue to get a new one. Fuck you @hellfestopenair
— Alex (@JudgeDewie) June 19, 2015
.@hellfestopenair Still queueing for my cashless card that got lost in the post. Missed 3 bands now. Cheers
— Alex (@JudgeDewie) June 19, 2015
.@hellfestopenair In the last half hour only FOUR people served at the cashless info window. Well done.
— Alex (@JudgeDewie) June 19, 2015
Finally in. Huge queues at the bar 😑
— Alex (@JudgeDewie) June 19, 2015
It's getting beyond a joke @hellfestopenair. Finally got card and went to bar and only showing 20€ credit on my card not €200.
— Alex (@JudgeDewie) June 19, 2015
I am told I HAVE to go back to the cashless info place and queue again. Thinking of just going home. Well done @hellfestopenair
— Alex (@JudgeDewie) June 19, 2015
Given up on @hellfestopenair. Heading back to hotel. What an utter shambles. Spend 4 hours queueing to sort problems & 0 hours seeing bands
— Alex (@JudgeDewie) June 19, 2015
Dehydrated and banging headache. Not the one.
— Alex (@JudgeDewie) June 19, 2015
Now, I’ve only got one person’s account of events to go on, but the comment that they managed to serve precisely four people in a half-hour period suggests something has gone badly wrong with the IT system.
It may have been hardware or software that hadn’t been tested under load. It may have been staff who were insufficiently trained in its use. But whatever it was, the end result was a customer service disaster.
