This year at the UK’s Isle Of Wight festival Intelligent Venue Solutions (IVS) partnered with MasterCard to provide attendees with NFC enabled wristbands preloaded with £30 as part of a pilot. Fans participating in the pilot could quickly and conveniently purchase food and drinks by simply tapping the wristbands against a reader on vendors stalls.

IVS’s Paul Pike confirms that mobile NFC payments are the ultimate goal for the future of festivals saying “A mobile wallet on the phone will solve a lot of problems. Everyone walks around festivals with their phones, whereas many are more reluctant to walk around with their cash cards. NFC-enabled mobiles can be combined with something visual, like a wristband, for access to areas and ID.”

Paul continues “Sometime next year we’ll start to see NFC payments come in, depending on what devices are available; NFC is part of Mastercard’s armoury for next year. NFC mobile payments will be trialled next year at festivals, bedding it down, and in 2013 I expect it to come into its own.”

Paul Pike also confirm regarding security “Prepaid wristbands are not directly linked to your bank account. You load up as much money onto them as you intend to spend, and can simply top up as required. If you are unfortunate enough to lose it or have your wristband stolen, the nearest ‘luminous jacket’ can report it and it can be immediately cancelled and reissued. It would be impossible to offer the same security guarantees with a cash theft.”