Cashless festival-style team days for 2,400 guests

The brief

Hickory’s Smokehouse brought its teams together for two festival-style days in fields, with around 1,200 guests at each. The atmosphere needed to feel relaxed, which meant quick entry, fast food and drink service and no cash or paper tokens, in an outdoor setting with unreliable connectivity. The events team also wanted to see what was happening across the site as it happened.

What we did

• Mobile-first registration captured consent and date of birth and sent each guest a QR e-ticket
• RFID wristbands were issued at check-in, already loaded with each guest’s food and drink tokens
• Age-gated alcohol was linked to registration data, so alcohol could not be redeemed by under-18s
• Cashless redemption ran across seven service points with live stock tracking
• Remote token management let the team top up VIP guests on the spot
• Live reporting showed attendance and consumption throughout each day

Connectivity in a field was the biggest risk, so every device had three layers: venue Wi-Fi, a mobile data SIM as backup, and a full offline mode for all scanning and redemption.

The result

Both days ran fully cashless. The team had live attendance and consumption figures throughout, and post-event reports turned the data into a plan for the next edition.