A different way to connect festival sponsors with attendees

During a festival, sponsors contribute to the attendee experience and entertainment. It’s very unlikely to attend a large festival without noticing heavy signs of branding across the grounds. Ranging from exclusive vendor booths to branded stage names and traditional banners, sponsors have become an integral part of a festival’s success.

Sponsors aim to build genuine connections with participants through innovation. According to a recent study, millennial attendees perceive brands that sponsor festivals as more authentic and trustworthy. As we live in a world where data is the new gold, being able to follow up and form a lasting relationship with your prospective clients is essential. As expected, festival-goers don’t like to lose their precious time with providing personal details, especially in this environment.

What if sponsors could collect valuable data from attendees with a simple tap of the hand?

Great news! Oveit Interact is the game changer in this case.

Sponsors using Oveit Interact

To collect data as a festival sponsor with our solution, the process is straight forward and user friendly. There is no need to ask individual attendees for personal information and manually input it. Instead, the NFC chip placed inside the branded wristband does the magic. Sponsors can create unique accounts and personalize the interaction screen as they wish. After each interaction, participants give their consent and agree to share their information with sponsors (GDPR compliant).

At the end of the festival, you can simply export the collected information from your account by pressing a button. If there are no add-ons attached to a particular ticket category, the interaction can only take place once. In other words, if someone tries to connect with a sponsor for the second time, the App will notify that an interaction has already occurred.

Austrian Airlines using Oveit Interact to connect with participants

Attendees using Oveit Interact

Recently, I attended a festival with a variety of brand activations (sponsors) on site. All of those activations were completely unique and truly inspiring. I found it annoying to participate in their campaigns, because I had to repeat myself every time to provide relevant details, such as my e-mail address or phone number . But guess what … I still did it because their freebies were quite amazing and worth claiming.

With Oveit Interact, providing those details in an environment where music is banging in your ears is not necessary. You can simply enjoy those cool freebies with a tap of your wrist.

Oveit Interact interface (it can be fully customized to represent your brand)

Main takeaways

As previously mentioned, data is the new gold. Oveit Interact enables festival sponsors to step up their game and collect valuable information in a matter of seconds. As for keeping in touch with the ones who passed by your booth, you can customize the follow-up email and the App takes care of sending it out after each interaction.

As for the attendees, it is important to mention that sponsors don’t have access to sensitive information. The information collected comes strictly from the registration form, included in the ticket purchase process. With that being said, don’t hesitate to contact us for additional information!

March 11, 2020 Event professionals, Festivals, Oveit Features, Technology, 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

Cashless payments and loyalty programs in hospitality & tourism

In today’s world, cash is not a preferred method of paying for goods and services. More and more businesses around the world have decided to eliminate the need of dealing with cash. There are other innovative payment alternatives, replacing the old-fashioned way of paying with cash. The hospitality and tourism industry is no different from the vast majority of businesses that adopt cashless payment alternatives. Travelers don’t feel comfortable when carrying cash during their holidays. Businesses that are part of this industry and not only, will transform usual customers into loyal ones, will increase sales, and improve the overall user experience considerably, if they switch to a cashless payment alternative.

Cashless payments and loyalty programs in resorts and hotels

Businesses that are part of the hospitality and tourism environment need to differentiate themselves from their competitors. It is an extremely competitive market, where customers have a variety of options to choose from. For a hotel, it is not enough to only provide bed & breakfast. Guests expect tailored and unique experiences. What if I told you that a simple key card can take on many roles, transforming your regular guests into loyal ones? Let’s take the example of a hotel chain, with several locations around the world. The majority of hotels and resorts, provide their guests with key cards for room access only. However, those cards can be used as: payment, entrance to specific areas, bonus, and loyalty cards in any participating location, therefore creating an ecosystem. Besides these great features, you will have access to qualified data that can be used strategically.

Among companies using incentives, 79% of them report a success rate and achieve the established goals . In the case of hotels and resorts, rewarding guests accordingly is very important. The reward is based on different aspects, such as number of bookings, amount spent within the hotel, referrals and not only. An easy way to make all this information available is by creating an ecosystem, therefore enabling to differentiate between gold and silver members for example. 

Supporting local businesses by partnering up with hotels and resorts

Hotels and resorts might choose to partner up with different businesses and contribute to the local economy. Depending on the purpose of your trip, the likelihood of willing to explore the surroundings are very high. For this reason, partnerships with local restaurants, cafes, shops, museums have a positive impact on the customer purchase experience. One creative way to achieve this, is to integrate the internal payment system of a hotel or resort with its partners. Guests will have the option to pay with their key card at partner locations, therefore expanding the ecosystem. Since all transactions are recorded, external vendors have access to relevant reports. They will be able to reward their loyal customers on their behalf.

The cashless payments solution that Oveit has put into place can easily achieve the above mentioned for any hospitality and tourism business. There might be times when internet is not available in every location that uses our system. We thought about this scenario and came up with a solution for it. Our technology has the capacity of working both online and offline, meaning that whenever internet goes down, the customer experience and the recorded data won’t be affected at all. We bet that you are asking yourself how we achieved that, but we invite you to find out for yourself!

October 8, 2019 Access management, Bussiness, Oveit Features No comments yet

Closed-loop payments for events and venues

When looking at the continuous development in terms of technology, it is very useful to understand and keep up with what it has to offer. For instance, the swift change from paying by using cash to the other well-known alternative, the credit card, has inspired many innovative minds to enrich and develop payment options, into unique and well-structured forms.

In this article, the focus will shift towards the closed-loop payment process that Oveit has put into place for its users. Its purpose is to explain the process of implementing a closed-loop payment system for a variety of sectors, such as events, hospitality & tourism and retail as well.

The main function of a closed loop payment system is to allow consumers to pre-load funds into a payment device, in our case those would be things such as wristbands, cards and even one’s own face.

To begin with, it is very important to identify the key players for achieving this kind of system.

Those are: 

Top-up points (cashiers)

Depending on the number of attendees, one of our team members can advise on a minimum number of top-up points needed to avoid long queues inside your event. Those points need to be strategically placed (e.g.: at the main entrance, nearby food trucks, and bars). Participants will be using the top-up points during the event to add money into their accounts with a simple tap of their hand. They can choose to add money, either by paying with cash or card at the designated credit points. Prior to the event, the organizer needs to invite users (cashiers) and choose the correct permissions, in this case, it would be ‘Event cashier’. As an event organizer, you will have access to all the financial information, but as a user, the access should be limited accordingly for security reasons.

Vendors

As expected, the credit added should obviously be spent at your event. This is where the vendors come into place. Think of food trucks, bars and any other entities that provide goods and services at your event. From the perspective of an event organizer, the process is very similar to that of creating an account for top-up points (cashiers). An invitation is required to each individual entity providing goods and services (vendors); the only thing that differs is that they would have a slightly different interface, which is designed for selling goods. The vendor will have the option to create a menu and add prices accordingly. The participants will pay for their items with a single tap and even with their faces (Oveit FacePay is our way of processing biometric payments).

Man in front of a food truck

Devices with NFC capability

To achieve a successful closed loop payment system with Oveit, the vendors as well as the cashiers should have Android smartphones with NFC reading integrated. The devices will basically take the role of POS (point of sale system), allowing the users to complete a transaction in a matter of seconds. IOS devices will very soon be able to be used as well in Oveit’s closed loop payment system.

Wristbands/Cards/Face as payment options

The majority of organizers tend to opt for NFC tag wristbands when setting up their event’s closed loop payment system. However, there are two other alternatives that Oveit has to offer and one of them is very innovative. Oveit FacePay function is the method that positively affects the attendee’s payment experience considerably. The transaction is simply confirmed with a smile and a gesture, replacing the need for wristbands or cards. There is also the option of paying with a card that has the NFC chip integrated. Some organizers might decide on choosing this one, for the simple reason that more space is available for placing ads and sponsors on a card.

Stable payment processing (both online and offline)

For achieving a closed-loop payment system, internet connection plays a crucial role. All the transactions that occur during an event require internet to be updated and transferred into Oveit’s system. However, we have managed to find a solution if internet goes down. To avoid this kind of situation, our local devices have the capacity of transferring data into the cloud. In other words, this means that Oveit’s closed-loop payment system has the capacity of working both online and offline.

September 23, 2019 Event management, Event tech, Oveit Features No comments yet

7 reasons why you should use a cashless payments solution for events

I am a huge fan of the cashless payments solution, there’s no secret here. Today I would like to list 7 of the most important benefits of using one for your events.

picture showing Oveit's cashless payment solution used at an event
1. The cashless payments solution increases your revenue

As the cash habit fades away, customers tend to increase their spending limit. Reports show that attendees tend to spend up to 30% more at events where a cashless payment system is in place. They love to buy, but they just don’t like the long queues that make them lose all the fun. Which takes us to reason #2.

2. It speeds up transactions


The tap and pay system is, by far, the fastest way to process transactions. According to American Express, cashless payments are 63% faster than cash transactions and 53% faster than classic debit/credit card transactions. Each transaction can be processed in under 5 seconds, a mid-sized cashless payment set-up allowing you to process over 20 transactions/second.

3.Detailed live reports

The cashless payment system gives you live access to real-time data. It’s 100% transparent, allowing you and your partners to see live how much money attendees are spending (and how). It also allows you to create “cohort reports” and segment your attendees based on their spending habits (and combine those reports to any demographic data you have collected).

4. Fraud and losses become a thing of the past

With a cashless payment system in place, fraud becomes almost impossible. Not handling cash or tokens will make it impossible for someone to steal the vendor’s income or the attendees’ money. Human errors may still appear, but with an easy to use cashless payment system, they are highly unlikely and easy to correct.

5.Multiple revenue streams

Using smart NFC tags for payments allows you to also use them for attendee engagement and experiential marketing. The event ticket is paired to the tag (that can be stored into the event wristband, card, or badge) and allows attendees to interact by a simple tap of the hand. It can also be used for smart screens and gamification, converting your event into one fun ecosystem. And sponsors are always attracted to new ideas for attendee engagement.

6. Less staff needed for access control

The event wristband can also store your attendees’ access credentials. Permissions can be checked by a simple tap to an NFC receiver, allowing you to delegate your team members to more important tasks. It’s also faster than traditional scanning, allowing attendees to move to different sections of your festival without having to wait in endless queues.

7. Increased overall attendee experience

I have saved it for last but in my opinion, this is the most important benefit of using a cashless payment system. The speed and safety that it adds to your event will make the whole experience unforgettable. Not having to carry your wallet, being able to purchase a beer without having to wait for ages, allowing you to use your wristband to claim perks, those are all benefits that we all crave for.

Why use our cashless payments solution?

What differentiates us? With Oveit you can set up a cashless payment solution without the need for expensive hardware. We have developed a mobile app that transforms your mobile phone into a powerful and easy to use POS. No need for special scanners or NFC devices; add credit and record purchases using just day to day mobile phones.
Another reason why you should definitely use or solution is that it works both online and offline. And because it does not require a special set-up it can be used in any location you wish. Like a remote island or the top of a mountain.

Contact us for more info.

November 26, 2018 Event management, Event tech, Events, Festivals, Oveit Features 1 comment