11 ms·

That’s festival payment done wrong, but cashless can be really great at festivals. In Denmark we have a festival called Skanderborg festival, and they build bo

That’s festival payment done wrong, but cashless can be really great at festivals. In Denmark we have a festival called Skanderborg festival, and they build both your ticket and your cashless payment into the festival bracelet. You use the bracelet to pay everywhere, and you can add money to it a range of payment methods, from using a visa or similar in their app, to visiting one of the cash places where you can use an atm and then add funds to your bracelet. It’s easily the best payment experience I’ve ever had at a festival.

bamboozled 8y ago
The best payment experience I’ve had is cash. I pay for what I need and when I leave the festival I can still use my “credits” hassle free anywhere I like.
- tedivm 8y ago
  Most of the cashless festivals return your unused "credits" pretty quickly after the festival. The real problem comes when the system breaks down- which I've seen happen at plenty of festivals. At that point if cash isn't an option then commerce simply stops- screwing both vendor and customer alike.
  - gammateam 8y ago
    > Most of the cashless festivals return your unused "credits" pretty quickly after the festival. for a $5 processing fee
    - metildaa 8y ago
      With a delay of their choosing, and a conversion factor for those of us that aren't locals. Cash has frictionless instant settlement, which is very hard to compete with as a centralized payment processor.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        > frictionless Except when they have no change (forcing you to find someone willing to change it or wait for them to do so) or refuse to accept a large bill. I often choose to use cash, but it's really not frictionless.
  - wild_preference 8y ago
    Festivals I've been to will, say, require deposits of 100 peso increments and then the beers cost 80 pesos. And you can't get your money out. Even if you could get your money back, you're still waiting at lines to recharge the bracelet. It's a joke. With cash, you just come prepared and withdraw at any ATM long before the festival. Bracelets didn't solve any problem except disconnect the money handling event from the purchasing event so that you lose track of it, like how microtransactions are never priced in actual currency.
    - addicted 8y ago
      Why can’t you load the same amount of money on your bracelet before the festival as the cash you would be carrying? If that’s because the festival organizers don’t let you retrieve your money easily or without a cost, that’s an issue with the festival management and not with the idea of digital money. I’ve been to a festival which allowed us to withdraw money freely (I think they had some restrictions such as only 1 free withdrawal after the festival was over, and/or it had to be done within a week or so) but that allowed us to simply load in excess money so we never had to recharge. That worked really well for us.
      - MereInterest 8y ago
        > If that’s because the festival organizers don’t let you retrieve your money easily or without a cost, that’s an issue with the festival management and not with the idea of digital money. The ability for poor implementations to exist is itself a strike against the general concept.
      - Aeolun 8y ago
        I think my problem with this comes down to ‘why the fuck are you bothering me with this?!’. We have perfectly valid working payment systems (cash, debit/credit), and for some reason you’ve decided that your festivals proprietary payment system is better? Have to load money, have to retrieve money, and have zero insight into how much I’ve already spent without even more apps or interfaces.
        8y ago
- go_blue_13 8y ago
  What a novel idea
- yholio 8y ago
  The trouble with cash is that you cannot really control high-school dropouts to charge $10 for a $2 beer without skimming a bit on the side. Hence this whole "here's some fake money that only works here" BS.
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    Just do an incorrect inventory. Some venues let workers do inventory and reporting. They are charging for the cup itself and that is how they determine sales. If a stack of cups disappears, there is no reconciliation. Music venues have some interesting procedures, Alpine valley allows under an oz of weed to be brought in. They have college girls carrying backpacks with 40k in cash. There is an off duty cop directly behind though.
    - jstanley 8y ago
      Can you elaborate on that second paragraph? I don't understand how those things are related to each other. Why do they allow weed to be brought in? Why do they have college girls carrying cash in a backpack? Why so much cash? Why is there an off-duty cop following her around? Isn't an off-duty cop just an ordinary member of the public? If a cop is required shouldn't it be an on-duty cop? If it's somehow a trap to catch drug dealers, how is it meant to work? Why do they limit the amount of weed? And why are they trying to catch drug dealers at all?
      - fotbr 8y ago
        Back in HS I worked at an amusement park for a summer. On a busy night, if I closed the booth, I'd be walking out the park's employee exit around 2am, through a somewhat busy and not-very-well-lit public area of the parking lot, and across to the admin offices with 30k+ in a plastic bag. That was not an uncommon amount for most of the non-token booths, and having 16-18 year old kids carrying it out of the park to the admin building was also common, since that was most of the park's work force. I'd guess the "college girls carrying 40k in cash in a backpack" were employees carrying cash out from whatever business/booth they were running and taking it to their bank or head office or whatnot, and the "off-duty" cop behind them was there acting as a security guard; since that's a somewhat common side gig for cops, and in may places, they're still given all the power and authority an "on duty" cop has. I don't get the connection to the weed (legal or otherwise, it has never been an interest of mine), but perhaps it explains the other bit.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  It is quite liberating. My family went cash only a couple of years ago. We spend less and tbh there isn’t much downside.
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    I have some friends who find that they budget much more successfully when they use only cash... they can see exactly what they have left this week or month.
    - XorNot 8y ago
      "Because I lack mental discipline a technology must be bad" This is an argument in the same vein as any number of self-assured blog posts which do the rounds through HN of "Why I stopped using X" and "Y considered harmful". Power to your friends maybe, but it's not an argument one way or another over the merits of the system - its an argument about things they do personally to ensure self-discipline.
      - llukas 8y ago
        Youre blaming victims - if system makes it harder for people to be in control this is systems property not peoples - youre making "fundamental attribution error".
        greglindahl 8y ago
        They don't think they're victims, they think they found a system that works for them. And they don't think it should be what everyone does. I had no idea that such a simple story would attract such strong reactions.
      - Aeolun 8y ago
        Everything else being equal. If one payment system helps you budget better, then it’s clearly better than the other.
    - rmrfrmrf 8y ago
- sizzle 8y ago
  Until you run out of cash on hand or it gets lost or stolen....
  - megaremote 8y ago
    No different to anything getting lost of stolen, and a bracelet is less likely to get lost or stolen.
    - wott 8y ago
      > a bracelet is less likely to get lost or stolen. You meant 'more', right?
    - sizzle 8y ago
      We are in agreement. I was just stating some tradeoffs to physically carrying money that weren't mentioned.
  - Aeolun 8y ago
    If it does, you go to the bank and get more cash. If your card gets stolen however, you go to the bank, fill out a ton of forms, pay a fee for losing your card. Wait a few days for your new card to be delivered in the mail. And then, finally can you pay again. In the meanwhile, you are forced to pay with... cash! Which nobody accepts, because not having a debit card is socially unacceptable in our society.
    - sumedh 8y ago
      > you go to the bank and get more cash. Not sure which country you are talking about but the vast majority of people go to an ATM not the bank to get cash. You still need a debit card to get cash from an ATM.
      - rs23296008n1 8y ago
        In my country I can withdraw cash from the machine as I pay for shopping at the supermarket. And I'm not saying I withdraw cash then pay. I pay with the card AND the cash I withdrew comes out after the transaction is complete. I haven't been to a bank for getting cash in 10 years. And as you say, ATMs are where you get cash.
- tensor 8y ago
  The best payment experience I've had is a credit card. It's harder to get robbed, I can pay everywhere with just a tap, I never need to remember to take out cash, tips are computed for me at my request, when I travel to many other countries I don't even need to get local currency, conversion happens automatically, and I'm not stuck with unused local currency when I leave.
  - wolco 8y ago
    Credit cards can be used virtually. It is easier to get robbed.
    - dmitriy_ko 8y ago
      All your fraudulent credit card transactions will be cancelled if this happens. Not so with cash.
  - sandos 8y ago
    Credit cards was how this all started in Sweden. Cash usage has been going down since the late 1990s, and the Swish thing is fairly new, we still use credit cards mostly, but swish is popular for smaller establishments or temporary events and such. You cant transfer money to your friends using a CC, but swish solves that. Its basically a national, private owned, Paypal, and that is the problem. Everybody uses it. My fiancee works at a school cafeteria, and Swish is the only accepted payment method. Not even credit cards work there.
- chrismcb 8y ago
  As much as I enjoy using cash, it isn't the best method. You have to carry it. You have to carry the change. The store had to have enough change. The store had to keep the pile of cash, and keep it safe. Then transfer it to my the bank at the end of the day or week or whatever. If you run out of cash on you, you have to figure out how to get more Cash had some nice features, like it is fairly anonymous. But it is far from perfect.
- scurvy 8y ago
  Counterpoint, the best place to spend counterfeit money is a music festival....and then it gets passed down to you. I've picked up a half dozen counterfeits at music festivals. Sucks if you're not really paying attention.
  - bamboozled 8y ago
    Maybe a problem for you, never had that experience, nor do I know a single person who had that happen. I have many friends who go to festivals.
- dewey 8y ago
  Every time I was at a festival there were some problems with ATMs not working, having no cash left etc. I’d rather have the bracelet solution and don’t have to worry about having 100 coins in my pockets or losing my wallet.
reaperducer 8y ago
In Denmark we have a festival called Skanderborg festival, and they build both your ticket and your cashless payment into the festival bracelet. Disney does that at Disneyland and Disney World in America: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/plan/my-disney-experience/bands-cards/ https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/plan/my-disney-experience/... You can also use it to unlock you hotel room and to link to those photographs that are taken of you when you're on the rides.
- illumin8 8y ago
  The main difference being that Disney has multiple backup systems, including switching to a completely manual process in case their network or servers are offline. I watched a presentation on this, and it's actually very interesting how they manage the ride experience so that even during a system outage they can still let people get on the rides.
  - Operyl 8y ago
    Which happens so very very rarely. It’s an amazing process.
  - sebiol 8y ago
    Is this presentation available online? I'd be very interested in watching it too.
    - illumin8 8y ago
      Sorry, I saw Disney's CIO speak at a tech conference, but I don't believe it was recorded.
mason55 8y ago
There’s a big club in NYC that does this (Brooklyn Mirage), except they link your credit card to the bracelet and you don’t have to load credit. Makes the lines for drinks move so fast, it’s really outstanding.
- dorfsmay 8y ago
  Do you have a pin or something to verify the payment? Would a stolen bracelet be useable? How do they deal with tips?
  - sethhochberg 8y ago
    You create a pin when you activate your card/wristband after walking in, yeah. At the Mirage, tips work just like a credit card transaction would - the bartender has an iPad sitting in front of them and you choose preset options or enter a custom one. Typically you place your order with the bartender, they'll ring it all up on the terminal, and by the time you've finished tapping your wristband on the reader and choosing a tip amount the bartender is done making your drinks. No hassle with pens and receipts and handing cards around or any of that. Out of all the festivals, etc, I've been to where they do wristband-based payment instead of accepting cards directly, Avant Gardner / Brooklyn Mirage have the best setup IMO. Apparently Billfold is the vendor: https://www.billfoldpos.com/ https://www.billfoldpos.com/
    - clubm8 8y ago
      > You create a pin when you activate your card/wristband after walking in, yeah. I wonder how many make theirs 1234
      - wott 8y ago
        Especially since you're drunk/high or will be very soon and won't be able to remember any more complex code.
      - Operyl 8y ago
        A lot of POS systems capable of this don’t allow seqential or repeating digits.
belorn 8y ago
Those system don't have to follow the same regulations as banks and thus have many more ways to extra money that might not be as obvious. Money when converted to tokens and credit are not money in the eye of the law, even if it is used identically to money and is the only currency allowed. If you are lucky they will return any unused credit automatic to your credit card without any fees. I would like to know how common that is and what kind of terms and conditions most such system has. My cynicism tells me its about as abusive as they can get away with but to be fair I have not tested it (since I either refuse to prepay on principle or only get the exact amount I have decided to already spend).
- teddyh 8y ago
  Some discussion about this on Jamie Zawinski’s blog two years ago (link via Facebook for Reasons): https://www.facebook.com/flx/warn/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jwz.org%2Fblog%2F2016%2F08%2Flike-regular-money-but-more-fun%2F&h=AT1jPWIJJoAQLK19RFkMcpqcNRL-qTamoNriDAbCnE1qOWtkvOs1ASuEULyGSMR4WntlCwfSaW3L3VjLUEwLTFE4RhIOZQa5iEWtgrWCmgZOFaxekjKMo3HFBexBmNI&_rdr https://www.facebook.com/flx/warn/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jwz.o...
megaremote 8y ago
How do you get money off the bracelet?
- atlasunshrugged 8y ago
  In my (limited) experience, you go to their website, enter your bank account details and some days/weeks after the festival when they've processed everything they send it via Swift to your bank (if in EU, haven't tried for a foreign account)
yangmaster 8y ago
Same with Sziget Festival in Budapest!
atlasunshrugged 8y ago
In Estonia we had something similar but instead of letting us top up via app or card remotely, you had to stand in line at a booth and give them the money and then register your bracelet online to get the refund of any additional funds left on at the end of the process. I get what they were going for but it felt like a ton of friction to me, all to eliminate a single swipe at the payment terminal?
picsao 8y ago
This sounds like a real life attempt on in game money - which is designed to allow a more mindless spending. Great if you are rich, and a nice little exploit if you are poor.
random_kris 8y ago
Yeah I agree. Was at sziget this summer and we could pay using our bank cards NFC and you don't have to input pin for payments under 15€. Also we could pay with festival's bracelet. This is THE BEST expirience. Easy for staff and for customers
wink 8y ago
They wanted to also do that for M'era Luna in 2016 and I wasn't very much looking forward to that, hearing it in 2015 - might be because I read about them tracking your movement and having your payment history at the festival. Suddenly cash was really convenient again to me.

bamboozled 8y ago

The best payment experience I’ve had is cash. I pay for what I need and when I leave the festival I can still use my “credits” hassle free anywhere I like.

tedivm 8y ago
Most of the cashless festivals return your unused "credits" pretty quickly after the festival. The real problem comes when the system breaks down- which I've seen happen at plenty of festivals. At that point if cash isn't an option then commerce simply stops- screwing both vendor and customer alike.
- gammateam 8y ago
  > Most of the cashless festivals return your unused "credits" pretty quickly after the festival. for a $5 processing fee
  - metildaa 8y ago
    With a delay of their choosing, and a conversion factor for those of us that aren't locals. Cash has frictionless instant settlement, which is very hard to compete with as a centralized payment processor.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      > frictionless Except when they have no change (forcing you to find someone willing to change it or wait for them to do so) or refuse to accept a large bill. I often choose to use cash, but it's really not frictionless.
- wild_preference 8y ago
  Festivals I've been to will, say, require deposits of 100 peso increments and then the beers cost 80 pesos. And you can't get your money out. Even if you could get your money back, you're still waiting at lines to recharge the bracelet. It's a joke. With cash, you just come prepared and withdraw at any ATM long before the festival. Bracelets didn't solve any problem except disconnect the money handling event from the purchasing event so that you lose track of it, like how microtransactions are never priced in actual currency.
  - addicted 8y ago
    Why can’t you load the same amount of money on your bracelet before the festival as the cash you would be carrying? If that’s because the festival organizers don’t let you retrieve your money easily or without a cost, that’s an issue with the festival management and not with the idea of digital money. I’ve been to a festival which allowed us to withdraw money freely (I think they had some restrictions such as only 1 free withdrawal after the festival was over, and/or it had to be done within a week or so) but that allowed us to simply load in excess money so we never had to recharge. That worked really well for us.
    - MereInterest 8y ago
      > If that’s because the festival organizers don’t let you retrieve your money easily or without a cost, that’s an issue with the festival management and not with the idea of digital money. The ability for poor implementations to exist is itself a strike against the general concept.
    - Aeolun 8y ago
      I think my problem with this comes down to ‘why the fuck are you bothering me with this?!’. We have perfectly valid working payment systems (cash, debit/credit), and for some reason you’ve decided that your festivals proprietary payment system is better? Have to load money, have to retrieve money, and have zero insight into how much I’ve already spent without even more apps or interfaces.
      - 8y ago
go_blue_13 8y ago
What a novel idea
yholio 8y ago
The trouble with cash is that you cannot really control high-school dropouts to charge $10 for a $2 beer without skimming a bit on the side. Hence this whole "here's some fake money that only works here" BS.
- paulie_a 8y ago
  Just do an incorrect inventory. Some venues let workers do inventory and reporting. They are charging for the cup itself and that is how they determine sales. If a stack of cups disappears, there is no reconciliation. Music venues have some interesting procedures, Alpine valley allows under an oz of weed to be brought in. They have college girls carrying backpacks with 40k in cash. There is an off duty cop directly behind though.
  - jstanley 8y ago
    Can you elaborate on that second paragraph? I don't understand how those things are related to each other. Why do they allow weed to be brought in? Why do they have college girls carrying cash in a backpack? Why so much cash? Why is there an off-duty cop following her around? Isn't an off-duty cop just an ordinary member of the public? If a cop is required shouldn't it be an on-duty cop? If it's somehow a trap to catch drug dealers, how is it meant to work? Why do they limit the amount of weed? And why are they trying to catch drug dealers at all?
    - fotbr 8y ago
      Back in HS I worked at an amusement park for a summer. On a busy night, if I closed the booth, I'd be walking out the park's employee exit around 2am, through a somewhat busy and not-very-well-lit public area of the parking lot, and across to the admin offices with 30k+ in a plastic bag. That was not an uncommon amount for most of the non-token booths, and having 16-18 year old kids carrying it out of the park to the admin building was also common, since that was most of the park's work force. I'd guess the "college girls carrying 40k in cash in a backpack" were employees carrying cash out from whatever business/booth they were running and taking it to their bank or head office or whatnot, and the "off-duty" cop behind them was there acting as a security guard; since that's a somewhat common side gig for cops, and in may places, they're still given all the power and authority an "on duty" cop has. I don't get the connection to the weed (legal or otherwise, it has never been an interest of mine), but perhaps it explains the other bit.
Spooky23 8y ago
It is quite liberating. My family went cash only a couple of years ago. We spend less and tbh there isn’t much downside.
- greglindahl 8y ago
  I have some friends who find that they budget much more successfully when they use only cash... they can see exactly what they have left this week or month.
  - XorNot 8y ago
    "Because I lack mental discipline a technology must be bad" This is an argument in the same vein as any number of self-assured blog posts which do the rounds through HN of "Why I stopped using X" and "Y considered harmful". Power to your friends maybe, but it's not an argument one way or another over the merits of the system - its an argument about things they do personally to ensure self-discipline.
    - llukas 8y ago
      Youre blaming victims - if system makes it harder for people to be in control this is systems property not peoples - youre making "fundamental attribution error".
      - greglindahl 8y ago
        They don't think they're victims, they think they found a system that works for them. And they don't think it should be what everyone does. I had no idea that such a simple story would attract such strong reactions.
    - Aeolun 8y ago
      Everything else being equal. If one payment system helps you budget better, then it’s clearly better than the other.
  - rmrfrmrf 8y ago
sizzle 8y ago
Until you run out of cash on hand or it gets lost or stolen....
- megaremote 8y ago
  No different to anything getting lost of stolen, and a bracelet is less likely to get lost or stolen.
  - wott 8y ago
    > a bracelet is less likely to get lost or stolen. You meant 'more', right?
  - sizzle 8y ago
    We are in agreement. I was just stating some tradeoffs to physically carrying money that weren't mentioned.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  If it does, you go to the bank and get more cash. If your card gets stolen however, you go to the bank, fill out a ton of forms, pay a fee for losing your card. Wait a few days for your new card to be delivered in the mail. And then, finally can you pay again. In the meanwhile, you are forced to pay with... cash! Which nobody accepts, because not having a debit card is socially unacceptable in our society.
  - sumedh 8y ago
    > you go to the bank and get more cash. Not sure which country you are talking about but the vast majority of people go to an ATM not the bank to get cash. You still need a debit card to get cash from an ATM.
    - rs23296008n1 8y ago
      In my country I can withdraw cash from the machine as I pay for shopping at the supermarket. And I'm not saying I withdraw cash then pay. I pay with the card AND the cash I withdrew comes out after the transaction is complete. I haven't been to a bank for getting cash in 10 years. And as you say, ATMs are where you get cash.
tensor 8y ago
The best payment experience I've had is a credit card. It's harder to get robbed, I can pay everywhere with just a tap, I never need to remember to take out cash, tips are computed for me at my request, when I travel to many other countries I don't even need to get local currency, conversion happens automatically, and I'm not stuck with unused local currency when I leave.
- wolco 8y ago
  Credit cards can be used virtually. It is easier to get robbed.
  - dmitriy_ko 8y ago
    All your fraudulent credit card transactions will be cancelled if this happens. Not so with cash.
- sandos 8y ago
  Credit cards was how this all started in Sweden. Cash usage has been going down since the late 1990s, and the Swish thing is fairly new, we still use credit cards mostly, but swish is popular for smaller establishments or temporary events and such. You cant transfer money to your friends using a CC, but swish solves that. Its basically a national, private owned, Paypal, and that is the problem. Everybody uses it. My fiancee works at a school cafeteria, and Swish is the only accepted payment method. Not even credit cards work there.
chrismcb 8y ago
As much as I enjoy using cash, it isn't the best method. You have to carry it. You have to carry the change. The store had to have enough change. The store had to keep the pile of cash, and keep it safe. Then transfer it to my the bank at the end of the day or week or whatever. If you run out of cash on you, you have to figure out how to get more Cash had some nice features, like it is fairly anonymous. But it is far from perfect.
scurvy 8y ago
Counterpoint, the best place to spend counterfeit money is a music festival....and then it gets passed down to you. I've picked up a half dozen counterfeits at music festivals. Sucks if you're not really paying attention.
- bamboozled 8y ago
  Maybe a problem for you, never had that experience, nor do I know a single person who had that happen. I have many friends who go to festivals.
dewey 8y ago
Every time I was at a festival there were some problems with ATMs not working, having no cash left etc. I’d rather have the bracelet solution and don’t have to worry about having 100 coins in my pockets or losing my wallet.

reaperducer 8y ago

In Denmark we have a festival called Skanderborg festival, and they build both your ticket and your cashless payment into the festival bracelet. Disney does that at Disneyland and Disney World in America: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/plan/my-disney-experience/bands-cards/ https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/plan/my-disney-experience/... You can also use it to unlock you hotel room and to link to those photographs that are taken of you when you're on the rides.

illumin8 8y ago
The main difference being that Disney has multiple backup systems, including switching to a completely manual process in case their network or servers are offline. I watched a presentation on this, and it's actually very interesting how they manage the ride experience so that even during a system outage they can still let people get on the rides.
- Operyl 8y ago
  Which happens so very very rarely. It’s an amazing process.
- sebiol 8y ago
  Is this presentation available online? I'd be very interested in watching it too.
  - illumin8 8y ago
    Sorry, I saw Disney's CIO speak at a tech conference, but I don't believe it was recorded.

mason55 8y ago

There’s a big club in NYC that does this (Brooklyn Mirage), except they link your credit card to the bracelet and you don’t have to load credit. Makes the lines for drinks move so fast, it’s really outstanding.

dorfsmay 8y ago
Do you have a pin or something to verify the payment? Would a stolen bracelet be useable? How do they deal with tips?
- sethhochberg 8y ago
  You create a pin when you activate your card/wristband after walking in, yeah. At the Mirage, tips work just like a credit card transaction would - the bartender has an iPad sitting in front of them and you choose preset options or enter a custom one. Typically you place your order with the bartender, they'll ring it all up on the terminal, and by the time you've finished tapping your wristband on the reader and choosing a tip amount the bartender is done making your drinks. No hassle with pens and receipts and handing cards around or any of that. Out of all the festivals, etc, I've been to where they do wristband-based payment instead of accepting cards directly, Avant Gardner / Brooklyn Mirage have the best setup IMO. Apparently Billfold is the vendor: https://www.billfoldpos.com/ https://www.billfoldpos.com/
  - clubm8 8y ago
    > You create a pin when you activate your card/wristband after walking in, yeah. I wonder how many make theirs 1234
    - wott 8y ago
      Especially since you're drunk/high or will be very soon and won't be able to remember any more complex code.
    - Operyl 8y ago
      A lot of POS systems capable of this don’t allow seqential or repeating digits.

belorn 8y ago

Those system don't have to follow the same regulations as banks and thus have many more ways to extra money that might not be as obvious. Money when converted to tokens and credit are not money in the eye of the law, even if it is used identically to money and is the only currency allowed. If you are lucky they will return any unused credit automatic to your credit card without any fees. I would like to know how common that is and what kind of terms and conditions most such system has. My cynicism tells me its about as abusive as they can get away with but to be fair I have not tested it (since I either refuse to prepay on principle or only get the exact amount I have decided to already spend).

teddyh 8y ago
Some discussion about this on Jamie Zawinski’s blog two years ago (link via Facebook for Reasons): https://www.facebook.com/flx/warn/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jwz.org%2Fblog%2F2016%2F08%2Flike-regular-money-but-more-fun%2F&h=AT1jPWIJJoAQLK19RFkMcpqcNRL-qTamoNriDAbCnE1qOWtkvOs1ASuEULyGSMR4WntlCwfSaW3L3VjLUEwLTFE4RhIOZQa5iEWtgrWCmgZOFaxekjKMo3HFBexBmNI&_rdr https://www.facebook.com/flx/warn/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jwz.o...

megaremote 8y ago

How do you get money off the bracelet?

atlasunshrugged 8y ago
In my (limited) experience, you go to their website, enter your bank account details and some days/weeks after the festival when they've processed everything they send it via Swift to your bank (if in EU, haven't tried for a foreign account)

yangmaster 8y ago

Same with Sziget Festival in Budapest!

atlasunshrugged 8y ago

In Estonia we had something similar but instead of letting us top up via app or card remotely, you had to stand in line at a booth and give them the money and then register your bracelet online to get the refund of any additional funds left on at the end of the process. I get what they were going for but it felt like a ton of friction to me, all to eliminate a single swipe at the payment terminal?

picsao 8y ago

This sounds like a real life attempt on in game money - which is designed to allow a more mindless spending. Great if you are rich, and a nice little exploit if you are poor.

random_kris 8y ago

Yeah I agree. Was at sziget this summer and we could pay using our bank cards NFC and you don't have to input pin for payments under 15€. Also we could pay with festival's bracelet. This is THE BEST expirience. Easy for staff and for customers

wink 8y ago

They wanted to also do that for M'era Luna in 2016 and I wasn't very much looking forward to that, hearing it in 2015 - might be because I read about them tracking your movement and having your payment history at the festival. Suddenly cash was really convenient again to me.