Squamish Valley Music Festival Goes Cashless with PDC RFID Technology

Smart Band^® Wristbands used for Access Control, Cashless Purchasing, and Social Media Integration

Valencia, CA (Oct. 16, 2014) Attendees at this year’s Squamish Valley Music Festival, in BC Canada, were equipped with tech-savvy PDC Smart Band^® RFID wristbands instead of paper tickets. The wristbands were used as multi-tasking devices for patron access control, cashless payments, and even social networking – all without the use of a wallet or a smart phone. The festival hosted 100,000 attendees, who entered through Intellitix’, portals that instantly read and validated their Smart Band^® RFID wristbands. With the capacity to validate more than 2,000 RFID wristbands per hour, the Intellitix portal system drastically reduced entrance lines, and identified counterfeit wristbands at the door.

PDC and Intelltix, the global leaders of RFID wristband technology and the producers of the Squamish Valley Music Festival, to implement the Intellipay RFID system that powered PDC Smart Band^® wristband applications throughout the event. PDC’s Smart Bands^® each contain a microchip with a unique code that verifies the authenticity of each band, helping prevent fraud from counterfeit wristbands, protecting revenue. Paul Runnals, Senior Vice President of Creative & Production for brand.LIVE said fraud is a major concern at festivals, and before implementing the RFID portal system, “people would make their own, ‘oldschool’ wristbands at home that were good enough quality to pass through security.”

The IntelliPay system provided guests with the freedom of a cashless environment which helped contribute to additional spending. “I think there is a bit of a psychological sense that once the money is loaded on their wristband and has left their bank account, they view that money as practically spent – even though we provided refunds,” Runnals said. “Guests would come up to booths and say, ‘I still have 20 bucks to spend.’ We definitely saw an increase in how much was spent on things like merchandise.” Guests were able to pre-load money on to their Smart Band^®, providing the convenience of instant food, alcohol and merchandise purchases at more than 160 cashless point-of-sale terminals set up throughout the festival.

Social sharing was boosted by allowing festival goers to link their Smart Band^® to their Facebook account. Fans used check-in and photo stations positioned throughout the event to share their experiences in real time, without a smart phone. Photos from every photo station featured a Squamish Valley Music Festival logo, boosting the festival’s presence and branding through wide-spread “likes” and “shares” on social media.   

About PDC

With more than 55 years of experience, PDC connects people, products, and technology through innovative ID systems that deliver superior customer experiences worldwide. PDC is the global leader and pacesetter in the development of wristbands, lanyards and RFID solutions. The company serves the leisure & entertainment, law enforcement, and animal identification industries. A pioneer of innovative technologies, PDC introduced the first bar code wristband system, first thermal printer wristband, first Smart Band^® RFID wristband system, and the award-winning PDC Smart^® Kiosk, among many other innovations.

Since its launch in 2000, PDC’s Smart Band^® RFID wristband system has been used by leading amusement parks, water parks, resorts, and music festivals to deliver unique and convenient applications that help redefine the guest experience, while reaping bottom line benefits to the companies who use them. Applications include: cashless point-of-sale; cashless arcade and vending; social media integration; keyless hotel and locker access; electronic access control; photo management systems; and customer loyalty programs. Additional PDC RFID Solutions include PDC Smart^® Cards, Key Fobs, Lanyards, Labels, and Parking Passes. For more information, visit http://www.pdcsolutions.com 

On Dec. 28, 2012, PDC was acquired by Brady Corporation, (NYSE:BRC) a world leader in identification solutions for people, products and places.

About Intellitix
Intellitix is the leading global provider of RFID access control, brand activation and cashless payment systems for live events. Since 2011 it has activated over 6 million RFID tags with 2 million of them used as the only payment method at an event site via IntelliPay. Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, and with offices also in the UK, Australia and the USA, Intellitix technology cuts queues to a minimum and eradicates ticket fraud and unwanted resale. Intellitix proprietary software and fully integrated hardware has proved 100 per cent secure and reliable. The Intellitix platform more closely connects promoters and brands with their audience, and works with any existing ticketing system or partner. In 2014 alone, Intellitix has deployed RFID solutions at festivals including Coachella and Bonnaroo (US), TomorrowLand (Belgium), Slottsfjell (Norway), Festival d’Été Quebec (Canada), TomorrowWorld (US), Corona Capital (Mexico) and the Ryder Cup in Scotland. Intellitix has worked with many major brands including Ford, Spotify, HTC, Sony, Gazprom, PlayStation, UniCredit, Adidas and Red Bull. www.intellitix.com

A YouTube case study of IntelliPay in action is available to watch here.