Highlight Festival

For seven editions, Highlight Festival has welcomed thousands of visitors to Ypres for an event built around experience. With around 12,500 attendees, more than 300 staff and crew, and a substantial organisation working behind the scenes, smooth operations are essential.

To manage accreditation, access control and cashless payments efficiently, Highlight Festival works with Weezevent’s solutions. We spoke with Lennert, co-founder of Highlight Festival, about the challenges of the event, the importance of ease of use, and the impact of a single central platform on the festival’s day-to-day operations.

Looking for one platform to handle multiple challenges

When the organising team reviewed its operational processes, it became clear that several parts of the event needed to be more closely connected.

What were you looking for?

“We had been searching for a few years for an all-in-one platform that did everything. So accreditation, cashless payments and access control.” – Lennert

That need for centralisation played an important role in the decision to choose Weezevent. For an event with thousands of visitors, hundreds of staff and several access zones, being able to manage all the information from a single environment makes a real difference.

Service as the deciding factor

Alongside the platform’s functionality, support was an important criterion.

Why did you choose Weezevent?

“Because the service is excellent, and that always matters to us. Mistakes can happen and technical issues can always come up, but the way they are resolved is consistently very good. We are genuinely satisfied with that.”

For the organising team, a successful partnership is about more than technology. It is also about the assurance that support is available when it is needed.

More control over accreditation and access rights

Behind the scenes, a festival of this scale brings significant logistical demands. Managing staff, crew, suppliers, and other parties alone requires a structured approach.

How does the platform help with managing accreditation?

“We have more than 1,500 chips. That is more than 1,500 cards that need to go out smoothly and efficiently. And that works brilliantly by sending them out in bulk.”

Beyond sending out accreditation, the system also gives the team more insight into access rights.

“It gives us a lot of clarity, in the sense of who can go where and who is allowed where. You can take it as far as you like. It is all programmed well. Everyone knows where they are allowed in, knows what the zones mean, and knows they need to scan when they enter the festival site and when they go backstage.”

As a result, the organisation has a clear structure for access management for both staff and everyone else on site.

A fully cashless festival experience

For the visitor experience, Highlight Festival again chose a fully cashless approach. More than 300 devices are deployed to handle payments and scans through NFC technology. For Lennert, the value lies above all in ease of use.

Why did you choose cashless payments again?

“As visitors come in, their tickets are loaded straight onto the wristband. After that, they can head to the bar, pay easily and never have to think about tokens. Just scan your wristband, and you get your drink. Efficient and smooth.”

“For the staff and crew coming in, there is no hassle with food vouchers and the like, either. It is all on their wristband.”

Ease of use as the common thread

When Lennert sums up the partnership with Weezevent, one theme comes up time and again: simplicity.

Whether it is managing thousands of accreditations, checking access rights, or processing payments on-site, the organisation wants to keep processes as straightforward as possible for visitors, staff, and organisers alike.

“Simply ease of use and efficiency.”

That is exactly what Highlight Festival was looking for in an event platform, and what gives the team the freedom today to focus fully on what really counts: an unforgettable visitor experience.

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Highlight Festival shows that a cashless approach is not reserved for the largest festivals alone. Discover how smaller and medium-sized festivals also benefit from a more efficient payment process and a better visitor experience in our blog.