Announced this morning, the two biggest names in cashless payment solutions, PlayPass and Weezevent have combined forces, and are eyeballing the reemerging leisure and entertainment sector, read: live events.
Together, the group now comprises six offices around the globe including Paris, Madrid, Antwerp, Lausanne and Montreal and has a headcount of over 100 employees.
Pre-pandemic, cashless payments were steadily growing in popularity amongst event producers with Lollapalooza (in Paris, Berlin and Santiago), Rock Werchter, Main Square, Hellfest, Rock En Seine, Frequency and Nova Rock all employing the NFC technology. And not just for music, leading sports brands including Formula 1, Red Bull Air Race, Paris St. Germain FC, Lausanne FC and the William Hill World Darts Championship have all employed this technology at their events.
Combined, this represents substantial £400 million in annual turnover. No small change.
And while this success represents a global/continental europe market, the new merger is expected to be replicated in the UK. Steve Jenner of PlayPass and Olly Goddard of Weezevent will jointly head up the group’s UK division, and in-house development teams are expected to be beefed up.
The PlayEvent (?) WeezePass (?) upcoming festival client list includes Standon Calling, 2000Trees, Black Deer, ArcTangent, Lakefest, Neverworld and the inaugural UnLocked Festival.
The new entity is reporting pre-orders for click-and-collect drinks, social distancing measures and adapted access control protocols for mass gatherings, are all now accounted for in the group’s latest product set.
All this humble author can say is … gimme mah vaccine, and bring on the FESTIVALS!
Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash
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