Oveit partners with Crypto.com to enable crypto payments for events and venues

We are announcing our partnership with Crypto.com, the pioneering payments and cryptocurrency platform. For the past months we have been working closely with the Crypto.com Pay team to provide events and venues an easy way to accept payment in cryptocurrency.

With Crypto.com Pay event planners and venue managers can accept crypto payments in BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP and CRO. If they do not want to be exposed to market volatility, payments in cryptocurrency can be converted to the fiat currency of their choice. This means that visitors can pay in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Crypto.com Coin or Ethereum, and event planners can retain the cryptocurrencies or have them converted to fiat currency such as USD or EUR.

Transactions are powered by the Crypto.com’s CCSS Level 3, ISO27001:2013 and PCI:DSS 3.2.1, Level 1 compliant platform. Crypto.com Pay Checkout safeguards customer payment data, providing event organizers peace of mind while offering customers the option to pay in cryptocurrencies. 

How can event planners use cryptocurrency payments?

Using Oveit’s integration of Crypto.com Pay, event planners and venues can accepts crypto payments in one or more ways:

  • Sell tickets to events or venues.
  • Sell add-ons to tickets: e.g. an event t-shirt, beverages or access to the VIP area in the event, all packed in the same ticket.
  • Allow digital wallets top-ups that can be used in-venue: Oveit offers event planners and venues the option to set up an in-venue economy . In the venue digital wallets can be used with local vendors by simply tapping an NFC wristband, showing QR codes or via biometric payments (face payments).

To celebrate this partnership and help event planners adopt this new payment technology we are waiving all fees for Crypto.com Pay transactions until the end of 2020. Crypto.com has announced customers making payments using Crypto.com Pay to events powered by Oveit will receive up to 10% cashback in CRO in their Crypto.com App wallet from now till 31 Jul 2020.

To find out more about the offerings of Crypto.com, please visit www.crypto.com.


About Oveit

Oveit provides Economy as a Service tools for events, venues and smart communities. Using Oveit event planners can sell tickets, manage registration and access control and set up cashless payments in their venues. 

Oveit’s distributed ledger technology creates an Edge Payments (payments at the edge of the cloud) ecosystem that is fast, secure, and always on. Visitors can top up a digital wallet and use it for a customized purchasing experience. Oveit helps events, retail companies and hospitality venues to onboard vendors and buyers, track visitor behavior both online and offline and increase revenue. 

About Crypto.com

Crypto.com was founded in 2016 on a simple belief: it’s a basic human right for everyone to control their money, data and identity. With over 1 million users on its platform today, Crypto.com provides a powerful alternative to traditional financial services, turning its vision of “cryptocurrency in every wallet” into reality, one customer at a time. Crypto.com is built on a solid foundation of security, privacy and compliance and is the first cryptocurrency company in the world to have CCSS Level 3, ISO27001:2013 and PCI:DSS 3.2.1, Level 1 compliance. Crypto.com is headquartered in Hong Kong with a 200+ strong team. For more information, please visit www.crypto.com.

March 23, 2020 Event management, Event tech, Events No comments yet

Closed-loop vs Open-loop payments for festivals

There is no doubt that implementing a fast and secure payment solution is essential for the success of your festival. The existing payment alternatives in today’s world can create long-standing debates among event professionals. To avoid contradictions, the available resources enable festival organizers to identify the solution that most suits their needs.

Adopting a closed-loop payment system for you festival gives you access to live reports, after-event data, faster transaction processing, pre-event revenue, offline transactions, lower payments processing fees and tailored experiences (rewarding your loyal customers).

Let’s understand the big picture and identify general characteristics of closed-loop and open-loop payments for now.

General characteristics of closed-loop and open-loop models

Closed-loop payments – think of closed-loop payments as a solution that works in a defined economy. Gift cards provided by companies have a payment mechanism that allows clients to use them solely at participating locations. That’s an example of a closed-loop economy. As the administrator of such economy, you can establish to a certain extent who is using it and where it is used. It allows users to pre-load funds into a digital wallet, linked to a payment device such as a card or wristband. Although, remaining funds can’t be spent outside the defined economy, consumers can withdraw the remaining balance. In a closed-loop environment, banks or other institutions are not part of the transaction process. As an administrator, you have access to customer information and purchase behavior.

Open-loop payments – the open-loop system is connected to banks or other similar institutions that act as intermediaries. It can’t be controlled by a single entity and it allows consumers to pay at different locations approved by the card issuer. This payment model allows clients to withdraw funds from an ATM (extra fee involved) and to make purchases at stores or online. Businesses that use the open-loop model don’t have access to customer information, because intermediaries (banks or other institutions) own it.

Now that you better understand how these models work, the focus will shift towards the closed-loop model and its applicability for a festival or event.

Pre-event revenue

To maximize the efficiency of a closed-loop system and increase your festival revenue, choose a solution that allows participants to add funds in advance. This way, attendees can buy their favorite beverage and food from the moment of entry, eliminating the need of visiting a top-up station on site. As an organizer, this enables you to cover your festival costs by using the pre-top-up funds strategically. Participants that choose to top-up their virtual accounts online won’t have to worry if their balance has fallen under a certain amount. The ‘Auto top-up’ feature takes care of that. The end user App developed by Oveit can easily achieve that.

Reward your loyal attendees

In the open-loop environment, rewarding your loyal customers based on purchase behavior is very unlikely. As previously mentioned, banks or other institutions are the absolute owners of transaction history and customer information.

On the contrary, a closed-loop model doesn’t involve any intermediaries in the payment process. As a festival organizer, you can be the administrator of a closed-loop economy and create multiple sub-economies with Oveit. On top of that, you can collect information from your attendees and use it to offer better experiences. For a festival, attendees can redeem rewards using an NFC wristband or card. By doing that, you can identify individual preferences and surprise your clients with personalized rewards and experiences.

Transaction speed

For a large festival, the transaction speed is vital. The open-loop system requires the bank to approve every transaction and it can take about 7-8 seconds to process. Imagine how would that work for a festival with 100,000 attendees.

On the other side, transactions take 1-2 seconds to complete in a closed loop environment. Without any intermediaries involved in the payment process, waiting time is reduced, resulting in more sales and satisfied customers.

Offline transactions

Processing offline transactions in the open-loop environment is risky and often not possible. Festivals usually take place in fields or other remote locations. Setting up a stable internet connection is definitely not an easy task to accomplish.

The closed-loop payment alternative enables organizers to process sales on-site without an internet connection. Participants can top-up their digital wallets and vendors can charge for food, drinks and merchandise. The only downside of operating offline is that reports won’t update in real time. Oveit is a hybrid solution and if internet goes down, the party goes on!

Insights into vendor sales

The closed-loop payment solution available on Oveit is much appreciated by festival vendors. Each vendor has a dedicated account with access to detailed reports. Applying different filters enables them to see all products sold within a date and time range.

Running out of the most requested products is a thing of the past with Oveit!

OveitPay product report
March 4, 2020 Event management, Event professionals, Event tech, Festivals, Uncategorized No comments yet

Including the local community into your event economy

Summer is around the corner and all the festival heads are getting excited for the amazing line-up which is coming up. You, as an event organizer are caught up with planning and making sure that your event will leave a great impression for those attending. It is an ongoing process that can be exhausting at times, but the final reward is something that makes it truly worthy. Finding the right sponsors, booking your line-up, promoting the event, taking care of logistics and the location itself are just a few examples of what festival and event organizers need to take care of. Besides that, contributing to the local community and being supported by the local community is very important to deliver a successful event.

Behavior at events located in cities

Popular events attract many participants from all over the world. During the course of an event, local vendors, artisans, craftspeople, hoteliers and other similar businesses make a large proportion of their annual income. As an event organizer, it is important to keep that in mind and contribute to their success.

Festival fans get extremely excited and impatient when the long-awaited moment of attending a music festival finally comes. Some of them will live the full experience and decide to camp within the event’s premises rather than booking a room in the city. However, those that were late in booking their camp spot or simply preferred to be accommodated somewhere else will have a slightly different experience.

This difference mainly lies in the actual experience with the local community and environment. Those camping are less likely to leave the festival surroundings, while those accommodated in the city might choose to experience the local culture and traditions besides attending the festival.

Impact on the local community

Expanding the event economy into the local community results in a mutual benefit for both parties. Therefore, attendees can purchase goods and services from local vendors with the events NFC wristband.

  • Benefits for the event organizer

You can see this as an opportunity and as an additional source of revenue. Enabling local vendors to use your event economy increases their sales and exposure. Therefore, you can agree with local vendors to receive a percentage coming from their sales. In exchange, you are promoting their business and bringing in new clientele.

At the end of a festival, participants will have unspent credit on their virtual accounts (NFC wristbands). They decide not to withdraw that credit for various reasons. However, allowing them to spend that remaining credit outside your festival will have a positive impact on their overall experience.

  • Benefits for the local vendors

For a local vendor, this can be a great opportunity. First, you can agree with the organizer to get your business exposed on the event App, if there is one, or on any promotional materials. This way, attendees become aware that your business accepts the event’s NFC wristband as a payment alternative, increasing your sales and exposure with minimal effort.

On top of that, you will gain access to sales reports following transactions. It enables you to market your product based on demographics and it also gives insights related to purchasing behavior. In other words, you will know exactly how to stock up for the next event.

Impact on smaller businesses

For a smaller shop that deals with handcrafted souvenirs, this solution can be ideal. During a large event, foreigners will certainly want to buy souvenirs for their beloved ones. What if cash is the only payment method accepted by that small shop? Integrating the event economy and allowing these shops to use it solves the problem. In addition, you can support these type of businesses without asking for a percentage in return. It will surely count towards a good reputation.

Enabling your attendees to buy goods and services using the event economy can bring many benefits. Therefore, event organizers and local vendors can add an additional source of revenue and contribute to a safe and fun payment alternative.

To expand your event economy with Oveit is straight-forward. There is no need for sophisticated and expensive hardware. A simple Android device with NFC capabilities integrated does the job. From your account, you can simply create multiple sub-economies with predefined credentials and allow local vendors to sell products in a matter of seconds.

February 13, 2020 Event management, Event professionals, Event tech, Oveit Features No comments yet

Making ticketing and registration better with our new features

In 2019 we’ve worked hard to bring you the best of what we think event management can be. It’s more than ticketing and registration – we thought of new concepts to make your event and venue really stand out.

We focused on three specific areas:

  1. cashless payments for events and venues
  2. prepacked perks and benefits
  3. making ticketing, registration and access control more accessible

I’ll start with number three and in the following days continue with prepacked perks and benefits and ending with cashless payments for events and venues.

Making ticketing and registration accessible to anyone

We noticed that a lot of what we offer is great for mid-sized to large events but to smaller ones it might be a bit too expensive, especially if they’re designing boutique, designer events. In these cases our current business model, where we charge a certain percentage of ticket sales is not really working, as that percentage, however small, might be to much.

At Oveit, we’re working towards a more open model where anyone can set up their own event economy. To make this possible we need to get you started, even when you can’t pay our ticketing software fees. So we made it free for small(er) events.

Small is beautiful: the free software plan for small events

After careful consideration we decided that we could offer our basic plan (ticketing and registration) for events under 300 visitors, for free. Yes, you can now get free event software for all your events under 300 attendees. This includes both paid and free events. This is our way of supporting you and our passionate community of event planners for their startup events. Just like you, we’re builders and entrepreneurs and we’re here to help you.

So what do you get with the free plan for event management?

Let’s have a look at the main features you’re getting with the free plan:

  • ticketing and registration: create multiple types of tickets, set different pricing points and start selling them instantly;
  • direct payments in your account: connect your PayPal or Stripe account and get payments directly into your account, no waiting time required;
  • registration forms: create registration forms for your attendees and buyers, extending the data you collect from your visitors;
  • seated / non-seated: easily create seating maps or just allow for general access for your events
  • customize follow up messages: add a personal touch to the follow up emails, after your visitors buy the tickets;
  • discount vouchers: an easy way to create special promotions for your visitors;
  • embed registration on your website: we think your registration, for your event, should be happening on your website, without competing events distracting your customers. It’s really easy to set up too: just copy and paste a short embed code;
  • get your team on board: easily create sub-accounts for your colleagues, whether they are checkin staff, event marketers or any other type of staff;
  • scanning apps for Android and iOS: the tickets are sent to your visitors by email and they can bring them with them either in printed form or digitally. Use our free apps to scan your visitors in fast and securely.

If this sounds interesting to you – check out an extended list of features for the free event app and signup now. If you registered sometimes in the past and your plan is not yet free – login to your account and go to the Pricing plan section. There you can choose the Starter account, free for up to 300 visitors.

Now I have to be open: there’s some great features that are not included in the free plan, like cashless payments or prepacked perks. Larger events (those with more than 300 visitors) also start paying after they’ve crossed the threshold. But we think this is a great start in helping you get your event off the ground.

Invite only tickets

We noticed there is a need for invite-only tickets, for all sorts of events, ranging from corporate, to conferences, to festivals.

The invitation only ticket can be easily set up in the ticket categories section by choosing “Private invitation” and entering an invite code:

Choose private invitation, enter the invite code and publish.

When your visitors will see the embedded registration widget, they can enter the invitation code in the checkout process, as seen below:

Invite only tickets claiming

Timezone settings

As Oveit has grown to be a tool used by event planners all over the world we felt the need to make it a bit more local.

At first we’ve integrated several languages (we started with English and added German, French, Spanish, Nederlands ).

But that didn’t seem to be enough. One thing that was really necessary was a time zone setting. By default, when you register now your timezone is set automatically, together with date/time display settings. You can change them in your account settings later on.

However, we know you might organize events all over the world and now there is a setting for each event to have its own date-time option, according to where it’s happening.

One more thing – what happens when you need to register visitors at the entrance?

Box office ticket sales and registration

We have been receiving requests from our users about how they could reliably register visitors at the entrance. For a long time this feature posed challenges on how can it be used reliably.

Good news – we think we cracked it. You can now use Oveit for registrations at the entrance or issuing tickets on the fly in in the box office.

We are still testing it with some of our most loyal customers so if you don’t have it – shoot us a message or contact us via live chat and we’ll make sure you can use it too.

So here’s how you start selling tickets at the entrance:

  • Press the + button right next to the ticket counter
  • Choose the type of ticket you want to generate
  • [ Optional ] enter the visitor details
  • [ Optional ] enter registration form details, if any
  • Generate & print ticket

That’s pretty much it in terms of ticketing and registration. We hope it makes your life easier and your events better. We’ll soon show you more details on the features we’ve been working on, especially in the prepacked perks and benefits area, as well as cashless payments.

November 27, 2019 Business events, Event management, Event tech 1 comment

IBTM 2019: What did we showcase in Barcelona ?

Last week Oveit attended IBTM 2019 in Barcelona as one of the leading Tech Watch Award shortlisted startups. IBTM is the largest business and travel meetings event in the world, where professionals meet to discuss the future trends of the event industry.

We’ve had a blast. It was an overwhelming event and the good people at Reed Exhibitions do a great job at running it and making it the global center of business and travel meetings.

Cashless payments for event professionals and the travel industry at IBTM 2019

In the past two years Oveit has been steadily evolving from events registration and access control to cashless payments, audience engagement and prepacked benefits. We’ve basically moved from an event registration tool to one which event planners can use to create an event economy. This is what we presented at IBTM 2019.

Cashless payments on mobile - Oveit

What we noticed was that a lot of the revenue and the experience around an event is outside of the planers’ traditionally accessible channels. For festivals, as an example, most of the revenue is generated not in ticket sales but in the economy developed around the festivals. Local vendors, bars, merchandising and more.

Our technology relies at heart on NFC contactless payment tokens (such as wristbands or cards) which visitors can top up and use to pay within the event venue. In the background, the event organizer manages the cashflow and distributes funds to vendors, usually retaining a certain management fee.

A new way to see the business of events and venues

With what is usually called “closed loop payments“, events and venues generate an extra stream of revenue but most important – they get access to relevant data.

With our technology event planners are able to plan their future events based on actual behavior data. They get an insight on what is popular and what is not, what is a key consumer driver and what are the most loyal visitors for their experiences.

This creates a virtuous cycle of better experiences, which generate more revenue and data and better options for the planner to improve on previous experiences.

Prepacked perks and benefits launched at IBTM 2019

At one point we’ve asked ourselves – what makes a ticket valuable? What do people care about when they’re buying a ticket. We asked the event visitors and the event planners. The answer is a bit of common sense: they are actually buying the experience that ticket entitles them to.

Cashless payments end user apps on mobile - Oveit

With this in mind we went on and developed our prepacked perks technology where one ticket can hold more than just the access to an event. It can hold access to specific sub-events, goods such as a t-shirt or a hamburger, services such as a cruise line or accommodations to the hotel.

With the prepacked perks, which can be stored on mobile devices, on RFID wristbands or even on biometric signatures, the experience can be vastly extended. Perks make the conventional limitations fade away for event planners and venues.

Facial biometrics access and payments

We’ve worked with some of the best experts in machine learning in computer vision to provide event planners a way to use biometrics in their event.

Facial biometrics for events and venues - Oveit
FacePay can hold digital balances and prepacked perks

By pairing facial features with access control rights, visitors can just
walk in, without a need to take out their ticket or unlock their smartphone. The scanning apps are loaded on smartphones, without a need to buy or rent hard to install equipment such as HD cameras or powerful computers.

At the same time they can use their face to pay for goods within the venue, just as they would when buying with a contactless card.

Edge Payments

Probably the most interesting technology we have presented at IBTM 2019 in Barcelona was edge payments .

Edge payments equipment. Edge computing for large events and venues.
Oveit’s Edge Payments box and interfaces.

So what are edge payments? For one – they are a hybrid between closed and open loop payments. A way for visitors to top up a digital balance in a closed loop economy and use it to pay for goods.

The second attribute and the most important one is that this technology allows operating payments even when the internet is down. This is usually due to massive numbers of visitors in one place, overloading the network or just plain old technology crashes. It’s great for large venues or conferences and especially festivals.

Oveit’s tech operates at the edge of the cloud, making sure that everything is operational even when all other systems have fallen.

It was a pleasure meeting all the people that stopped by our booth and the ones we visited at theirs, especially in the hospitality industry, where we see great opportunities for our technology to improve experiences.

Barcelona is an amazing city and IBTM fits right in, especially for event and
hospitality professionals. See y’all soon!


November 25, 2019 Event management, Event professionals, Event tech, Future No comments yet