Mysteryland USA, the international music and arts festival taking place this Memorial Day weekend at New York’s iconic Bethel Woods Center For The Arts – home to the legendary 1969 Woodstock Festival – will break new ground as its inaugural U.S. event will be North America’s first cashless multi-day music festival.
ID&T, whose company is also behind mega events such as TomorrowWorld and Sensation, has engaged the world’s leading RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) access control and cashless payment providers Intellitix to deploy their cashless payment system, IntelliPay, across the entire festival site.
Each of the expected 20,000 attendees, eager to see headliners Kaskade and Steve Aoki, plus a myriad of other globally renowned DJs, will be issued a Mysteryland wristband, embedded with an RFID chip, which will be the only currency accepted by vendors and merchandisers on-site across the festival.
Customers can add funds to their account pre-event, set up automatic top-ups and, crucially, receive refunds automatically on any remaining balance post-event. There will also be top up stations available across the festival site, accepting credit cards, debit cards and cash.
Spokesperson ID&T/Mysteryland, comments: “While this is the first ever U.S. Mysteryland, we have had sister events taking place in the Netherlands and Chile for over 20 years. We’re known for continually pushing creative and technical boundaries, so the introduction of cashless payments was a natural next step.”
“It will significantly advance the fan experience by improving security, drastically cutting wait times for food & beverages, and eliminating theft and fraud. We are the first major electronic music festival to go completely cashless in the U.S. and see this as the future of all large-scale events.”