Festival Cruïlla

In July 2021, 50,000 people danced at the three-day festival in Spain, with no restrictions on movement or social distancing rules. The seemingly impossible was made possible at Festival Cruïlla thanks to the implementation of a strict admission system. Our technological solutions supported the event for the various crucial aspects of the operation, including online payment for antigen tests, access control, verification of test results, and cashless payments at the bars & catering points.

Managing 50,000 attendees in the context of Covid-19

Payment for antigen tests and NFC access control

Our technical team developed an innovative and unique solution for the needs of this special edition of Festival Cruïlla: a module integrating cashless top-ups, as well as the booking and payment for antigen tests, which attendees had to carry out each day of the festival.Before the antigen tests were conducted, each attendee had to present their ticket to prove its validity and their identity. Each attendee was then given a wristband with an NFC chip linked to their ticket and personal cashless account. The company in charge of carrying out the tests were able to send the results of each test to Weezevent via an API. The wristband therefore had three functions; a ticket, proof of a negative antigen test, and means to make cashless payments.

At the festival’s access points the information contained in the wristband was checked using the NFC chip and the identity of the attendee was verified.

Discover the operation in détail

A cashless account adapted to all circumstances

The WeezPay tool allows for a highly flexible configuration of cashless accounts. At Festival Cruïlla, for example, the option to associate several tickets with a single cashless account was implemented. This system is widely used by families to manage their consumption at events, and was particularly useful at this festival in enabling payments for tests for whole families with no need to create an account for minors (from 7 to 16 years old). This also allowed for the management of tickets for each day of the festival as well as payments for antigen tests from a single cashless account.

In addition, the information on cashless accounts facilitated the checking of minors’ ages at all bars through a simple process: when a minor’s wristband was scanned at the bar the system immediately notified the operator and made it impossible to sell them alcoholic drinks.

100% online cashless top-ups

Cashless top-ups were opened before the event, together with payments for the antigen test. During the festival there were no physical top-up points, with all top-ups made online. This system, which avoided unnecessary contact, travel and queuing, was well received by the public and top-ups went smoothly.

During the event, automatic top-ups were activated for those who wanted them. This meant that when the previously topped-up balance was spent, €20 was automatically topped up to the attendee’s cashless account, without the attendee needing to do anything. This option was limited to a total of 5 top-ups, and required manual reactivation by the attendee to restart the automatic top-up cycle.

Use of key loyalty features

Brand activations

Brands such as Jägermeister, Coca-Cola, City Scout, DKV and Naturgy were able to carry out brand activations quickly and easily. The WeezPay cashless system made the process simple: each brand had a cashless terminal on which it could select a free product to give to an attendee. Each of these freebies was then recorded and documented in reports from the back office.

Building loyalty among 2020 ticket holders

The organisers also wanted to thank the attendees who had bought their tickets for the 2020 edition and who did not ask for a refund when the postponement was announced, rewarding their loyalty with an offer of free drinks. Through WeezPay, this was easily done by allocating these free drinks to the corresponding attendees who could redeem them directly via their cashless wristband.

Returnable glasses

In most of the bars, the option to buy and return reusable glasses was not activated due to the use of biodegradable cups. However, it was decided that they would be used in the VIP area, where attendees could get a refund on their cashless account for returned empty glasses.

Monitoring in real time … and on large screens

Weezevent provided dashboards to allow the organisers to monitor the various key data points on the event in real time, including access numbers, top-ups, the top 10 bars in terms of sales, the most purchased products, and so on.

The organisers dedicated a room for this purpose, the Data Control Centre, where they installed large screens to display these control panels. In the era of data analysis the initiative was a great success!