CaSE STUDY
Mastercard
Getting it all by advancing contactless payment at major events: Driving technological innovation and shaping customer behaviour.
Live showcase
Mastercard facilitates contactless payment at 700+ point-of-sales
Value-add doubled
Mastercard helps deliver smooth processes and incentivizes use of contactless payments
Cashless payment—
even at the festival ferris wheel!
Cashless payment!
even at the festival ferris wheel
Mastercard is a global leader in payments technology and connects individuals, businesses and organizations around the world. Advancing electronic payments to enable commerce, Mastercard seeks to create greater opportunities for all. Putting technology and meaningful experiences first, Mastercard sees a perfect fit in associating with key EVENTIM assets. Mastercard’s goal is to continue what they are used to: transforming the way we live.
Mastercard and EVENTIM entered a broad marketing and technology partnership to introduce and incentivize contactless payment on site at multiple music events and venues from the EVENTIM roster. Having started with initial projects in 2016 at the Hamburger Kultursommer concert series (Rea Garvey, David Guetta, and many more) the project continued in 2017 covering the festivals Hurricane and New Horizons.
At the Hurricane Festival, cashless transactions with credit and debit cards or mobile devices were introduced next to cash payments. Real-time, open-loop transactions required building a wired glass-fiber internet network in plain countryside. Quite a challenge. Yet, it paid off. The system operated flawless without the slightest disruption and contactless Mastercard payments—per card or smartphone—were greatly adopted by the fans. As a special incentive, fans paying by Mastercard were offered a discount on the whole baverages range, pushing the acceptance on-site even further.
The Hurricane Festival – promoted by FKP Scorpio – is a leading festival brand in Europe with more than 20 years of history. It is a three-day festival with genres Mixed, Alternative, Indie, Pop, Electro. Every year about 80,000 people visit the 3-day festival. All tickets sold are full-weekend tickets. The Hurricane Festival took place from 23 – 25 June 2017 in Scheeßel; for Aftermovie click here.
300,000+
Drinks bought cashless
55,000 fans
enjoyed smooth cashless payment
Later in the year, the New Horizons Festival was chosen to completely abandon cash payments. Next to open loop payments via mobile or cards, an RFID-based, closed-loop payment system was implemented. The 55.000 fans could choose between payment with Mastercard or topping-up an RFID card at the festival site. The specific and comparatively young target group of EDM fans showed no hesitation at all to adopt a fully-fledged cashless system. While closed-loop systems have been used elsewhere, New Horizons was the first festival in Germany to offer a combined closed and open loop payment system. On-site promotions were were very successful in promoting Mastercard transactions at bars, the festival supermarket and Ferris wheel.
New Horizons Festival is a brand-new festival for Electronic Dance Music on the iconic Nürburgring – promoted by ALDA Germany. Seven incredible areas dedicated to electronic music genres such as EDM, Trance, Techno, Goa, Hard Style and Trap are created as futuristic dreamlands, each resembling a theme park in its own. The line-up includes over 150 of the world’s best DJs. New Horizons Festival took place from 25 – 26 August 2017 on the Nürburgring in Nürburg – for Aftermovie click here.
By providing a unique and innovative solution to use during the festivals, Mastercard enjoyed outstanding visibility towards the fans.
On top of that, Mastercard also took the chance and invited B2B-partners and press representatives to their festival lounge on both festivals. Their tailor-made Mastercard Lounge in the midst of the festival ground was used for workshops and presentations as well as its clear view on the stages.
Guests were also given live-demos of the payments systems and backstage tours. In the end this left all visitors – B2C as well as B2B – with exceptional memories.
And guess what – follow-up projects are in the making.