Event Genius delivers cashless to first unrestricted European festival since the pandemic began

The beginning of June brought with it an important landmark for the live events industry, as Unum Festival in Albania saw the first legal, unrestricted music festival in Europe take place since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic in early 2020. We were extremely excited and proud to be involved with the event, powering all the onsite payments with our cashless payments solution, egPay. 

Albania has a strong handle on the pandemic. Cases of COVID-19 have been on a steady decline since hitting 1,000+ daily cases at the end of February, with just nine new cases recorded on the opening day of the festival.  

Across five days on the beautiful coast at Shëngjin, thousands of festival-goers were treated to sun-drenched beaches, the joy of being together and sets from an array of underground house and techno stalwarts – including the likes of Ricardo Villalobos, Sonja Moonear, Raresh, tINI and more.

Our egPay cashless payments system allowed fans in attendance to pre-purchase credit vouchers, which were then applied to RFID enabled wristbands during entry, to then be used at all bars and vendors across the festival.

As highlighted in our recent Festicket customer survey earlier this year, a simple and efficient cashless system has a key role to play in improving the festival experience for fans and reassuring festival-goers that the necessary steps are being taken to ensure their safety, with 70% of respondents saying that they would be more encouraged to attend a festival/event if it were to implement a COVID-secure cashless system on site for bars, food vendors and all other payments.

By using a cashless system, Unum Festival were able to:

•  Reduce queues and improve audience flow
•  Minimise contact points between fans and staff
•  Eliminate cash handling by both staff and customers
•  Create a safer and more hygienic environment for their staff to work in and their fans to party in

The festival represented a release for the festival and electronic music community that had been bottled up for well over a year. Beyond this, its importance in demonstrating how festivals can safely run at this time and how technology such as cashless and contactless have a role to play in the industry’s reopening shouldn’t be underestimated. 

If you'd like to speak to us about how egPay or any of our other services can help your festival or event, don't hesitate to get in touch. We'd love to hear from you!