Austin City Limits Music Festival Is A Cash-less, Line-less & Arrest-less Hit (Basically)
Austin City Limits hosts it’s double weekend blow-out at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas, with headliners like it has never seen (recently including such celebrities as Eminem, Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Pearl Jam, Calvin Harris, Outkast, Avett Brothers & more).
In 2014, nearly 80,000 people attended the festival each day, and only 3 arrests TOTAL were made the first weekend. In 2015, over the course of the entire event, 450,000 people attended Austin City Limits. There might have been tons of traffic, and more parking tickets than ever before, but the crowd was controlled. One of the reasons were the wristbands required for each ticket holder.
Scanning technology allowed attendants to scan and “beep” right in, replacing turnstiles or scanning guns. Crowds could flow past the gates, scanning in and out.
The bracelets were also linked back to the holder’s registration file, where they could put in their credit card information, which then stored on their bracelets. Concessions and beer could be purchased through the “bump” of a bracelet against the vendor’s scanners connected to their iPads. Lines for both gate entrances and beer stands were never more than a couple of folks deep. As a bonus benefit to the beer vendors, the result of making beer purchases so much easier was a corresponding increase in the amount of beers sold.
Perhaps easy check-in and payment were reasons for fewer angry tempers and subsequent arrests. Altogether, many, many people over the course of the festival’s activities were able to enjoy the music they came for without distraction.
Makes you wonder: how is technology working for your event? Let us help.