Intelligent festival wristbands wipe out the need to carry cash

Promoters of Electric Picnic, and any other Irish music festival for that matter, are you listening? The humble festival wristband has gone digital and it’s about time too.

For the first time ever, digital wristbands were offered to music goers at this year’s Eurosonic Noorderslag festival last weekend. Instead of having the usual paper/plastic variety that almost always ends up falling off and/or getting lost at some stage, fans were branded with a sleek new microchipped wristband. It is hoped that this new technology will soon become the norm at music festivals.

What’s so great about having a digital wristband? Well firstly, their main purpose is to wipe out ticket fraud and touting. But there are added benefits for festival attendees. Each wristband gives the wearer that little bit more freedom during festival time.

Thanks to the implementation of on-site scanning machines rather than burly, exhausted security guards, you can scan yourself in and out of the festival site without having to root around for a ticket stub or try and convince security that your dodgy, held-together-with-chewing-gum wristband is indeed yours and not just one you stole off your friend who’s already inside.

The best thing about these little beauties has got to be the fact that at Eurosonic this year, attendees could load their digital wristbands with money so they could pay for goods on site without having to bring wallets. Genius.

The BBC reports that the wristbands look like standard festival bands, except they’re fitted with a tiny microchip. Music lovers are registered in and out of venues with turnstiles or hand-held devices – basically you just scan and go. There’s no fuss or no hassle.

There is one downside though, as people have already voiced concerns about the “tracking” ability that the microchipped wristband has. While the user is wearing it all their comings and goings will be logged. We have to wonder, is it just another way to steal data off us? Either way, you can't deny that it's a good idea. It could completely revolutionize the festival experience from now on.

The company behind the wristbands, Intellitix, has confirmed that the technology will be used at “a couple” of UK festivals in 2012. We wonder how long it’ll take for it to catch on over here.