Lille Street Food Festival

7 October 2021, Hello Lille, the agency focused on attracting tourism, business, etc., for the Lille metropolitan area in France, kicks off the first edition of its 100% cashless gastronomic festival, Lille Street Food Festival.
For 4 days, the people of Lille were able to eat and drink, thanks to the many food trucks on hand, and spend time with family and friends at concerts and other events.

A success in cashless adoption for the first edition of the festival

Hello Lille’s challenge was twofold: on the one hand, to create a major street food event in Lille from scratch, and on the other, to offer and successfully run this event in a 100% cashless format from its very first edition.

Support made in Weezevent

The adoption of cashless was made possible thanks to the support provided to the association by our teams before, during and after the event.
During the event, our team members trained all 26 food vendors in the use of the cashless payment terminals, provided technical support and dealt with any questions from attendees. This support enabled the organisers to concentrate on making their event a success without worrying about a technical glitch.

The flexibility of our turnkey solution

According to festival attendance estimates, 5,000 cashless (NFC) cards were planned. But the event was so successful that 3,000 additional cards were distributed to attendees, thanks to our organisation’s ability to adapt.

The festival’s success in figures

The organisers, Hello Lille, were able to see for themselves how satisfied the attendees were with the cashless system, even though most of them were using it for the first time. In addition to the testimonials received during the event, the figures also attest to this satisfaction:

• 3,000 cards have been topped up at least twice.
• The average top-up amount was €20-30.
• +55,000 transactions were made over the weekend, i.e. around 7 transactions per cashless card.

A tracking system adapted to the type of event

The use of Weezpay, our cashless system, enabled the organising teams to track all the transactions made at the event easily and in real-time.

This system has enabled the various food offers to adjust their stocks in line with demand and to have an overview of their daily turnover.

Instant tracking also enabled the organising team to monitor the performance of each of the food booths much more accurately than with cash. This enabled the association to easily measure the success of its event, hour after hour, day after day.

Benefits for future editions

The acceptance and use of cashless by attendees, even though this was a first edition, exceeded initial expectations. The fluidity of the transactions allayed the fears the organiser initially had associated with this technology regarding the food vendors and the attendees. As a result, Hello Lille can look forward to an even greater overall take-up of the system for future editions of the Lille Street Food Festival.

The data collected will enable us to prepare a second edition that is even closer to the expectations and consumer habits observed, thus maximising sales.

Here are some of the lessons learned from this data:

While some of the food vendors present had planned to take a break between 3 pm and 6 pm, as many restaurants do, the event recorded a large number of transactions over this period. Food & beverage suppliers will now be able to anticipate these flows for future editions in order to meet the constant consumer demand from attendees.

For Hello Lille, like all event organisers, data is a key element in acquiring partners and advertisers. Its use will also make it possible to dispel the reluctance of restaurant owners who did not wish to take part in this year’s event because they were unfamiliar with the cashless payment system and its performance.