Budapest, August 23 2016. – Sziget Festival, which is the largest musical festival of the region, almost half million visitors completed more than 3 million card transactions during the 7 days of the festival. This year the number of bank card payments has almost doubled. The Festipay Prepaid MasterCard, presented at the Sziget Festival for the first time, also contributed to this increase. The card offers a long term payment solution outside of the Festival as well.
Sziget Festival has broken records this year regarding to the number of attendants: according to the data published on Wednesday, a total of 496 thousand visitors chose the Festival for entertainment, which means an increase of 12.5 per cent compared to last year. For the Sziget visitors for several years only available the cashless payment, and this year the Festival added a completely new payment method to its offering: the Festipay Prepaid card, launched at Sziget, offers several benefits; one of the biggest advantages is that the cardholder can top it up with only as much money as they wish to spend.
“It has been the first occasion in the world that an own branded prepaid card could be used in festival surrounding, and we are satisfied because the Prepaid product of Festipay has been well received by the visitors. Customers who have preregistered, received exclusive cards with their names on them, and it could be purchased at the Festipay Prepaid Point at the Festival” explained László Márki, the CEO of Festipay.
According to the recently published data, over 90 per cent of the pre-ordered cards have been collected, and most of the prepaid cards ordered during the Sziget Festival were purchased by foreigners.
“It is no coincidence that we timed the launch of the card for the Sziget, since more and more festival visitors pay by contactless bank cards each year. We have experienced especially high interests for innovative payment solutions in festival surrounding” added the CEO.
This is how money was spent in the Sziget this year – the number of payments by bank card has almost doubled
In 2016 an increase was registered regarding to the number of transactions as well: while in 2015 2.5 million transactions were completed, this number has been over 3 million this year.
“We have registered a significant increase in the number of purchases by bank card as well, since last year we registered 168,500 payments by bank card in the Sziget, while this year this number was 300,425. We have issued a total of 110,000 Festipay general festival cards, which received credits in 279,000 cases” said László Márki.
The festival payment services were made more comfortable by the mobile application of Festipay, introduced last year for both Android and iOS platforms. More than 15 per cent of the festival goers used the application, they were mainly Hungarian visitors, since during foreigner festival visitors typically use their smart phones less often. Expanded by the option of topping up from a bank card, the application made the lives of festival visitors even easier this year, for those who registered their bankcard into the app could top up their festival cards without queuing. .
Cashless payment was also welcome in Romania
This year Festipay Zrt. provided cashless payment services in several musical festivals held in Romania in addition to Untold held in Cluj. The visitors were introduced to the service in two more festivals in the summer (Airfield and Summer Well). Meanwhile, during the spring the visitors of the Gourmet event of Bucharest had the chance to become familiar with cashless services. .
Having been held for the second time, the number of visitors and transactions in Untold increased significantly. This year the festival attracted 320 thousand visitors (which is an increase of 40 thousand), and the customers spent almost twice as much, while the number of registered transactions was 578 thousand last year, in 2016 this figure exceeded 900 thousand.
The two-day Summer Well and the four-day Airfield festivals have been held as cashless events for the first time this year. During two days 40 thousand visitors were registered at Summer Well, who completed 70 thousand transactions. During the four days of Airfield approximately 28 thousand customers of the festival completed 44 thousand payments.
Life beyond the festivals
“Although the venue of the launch of the card was the Sziget Festival, we have worked even so far to ensure that Festipay Prepaid card will facilitate a simpler and more secure method of payment” explained László Márki. He emphasized that since this prepaid card is not a festival card, it does not have to be redeemed when the Sziget is over, which means that the customers can save on waiting in line, which is often a time-consuming experience associated with classic festival cards.
Since this prepaid card is not tied to any bank, it can be obtained in a simple and fast manner, there is no need to open a current account or conclude a written contract for it. One of the greatest benefits of the prepaid card is that its holder only needs to top up the card with amounts that they wish to spend. This makes the online shopping a more secure transaction, and the spending can be controlled easily by the card.
Money can be placed on the prepaid card by bank transfer, from a debit or credit card, by SMS or by real-time transfer of money between cards. Furthermore, top up with cash or by a bank card is available in the network of nearly 170 filling stations of OMV in Hungary. Not linked to any bank, the card can be used in points of sale where MasterCard is accepted everywhere in the world and for online purchases.
Festipay will also provide the cashless payment services for the Strand and BmyLake Festivals and for the Youth Days of Szeged.