Wakestock 2012 Employs NFC RFID Ticketing

We are still very early in the Near Field Communications (NFC) story, but a deployment at this week’s Wakestock, one of the first of its kind in the UK, gives us a glimpse into the future of event ticketing, and potential benefits of this short-range, high-frequency RFID technology.

When thousands of music and extreme sports fans attend Wakestock, Europe’s largest music and wakeboarding festival, they will not use paper tickets to enter the event.  They will instead use RFID-enabled wristbands, which will be read on arrival to validate visitors’ entry.

In addition to providing “secure access” and “virtually no queues,” the wristbands will enable visitors to enter competitions and link to their Facebook profiles so they can “check-in” and share their experiences with their friends. Visitors can connect their wristbands to Facebook at the Samsung booth, which, of course, is a great tactic to drive traffic to Samsung’s booth.

The potential of NFC for event organizers is huge, especially in ticketing. Consider this comment from Simon Stanford, vice president of Samsung’s telecommunications and networks division for the United Kingdom and Ireland, which is supplying the wristbands and partnering with the event organizer on this deployment: “In future, everyone will be able to use their mobile phone as their ticket, whether they are music fans going to a gig, or a commuters traveling to work.”

Samsung and other manufacturers are integrating NFC into their latest generation of smartphones, which will enable virtual ticketing and other high-value actions. As more and more people buy their next smartphones, NFC will start to scale, and adoption should be facilitated by lack of hurdles—i.e., mobile users with NFC-enabled devices don’t have to download anything to use the technology, and it is very easy to use.

Smartphone-initiated NFC activities at scale are coming. However, NFC-enabled smartphone penetration is currently very low, so impact here will be limited until critical mass is reached.

In the meantime, consider use cases like Wakestock, if relevant for your events. Start thinking about how an NFC-enabled future will benefit your events, and consider following younger-demo lifestyle events like Wakestock, as they are a leading indicator of where mobile is going.

Posted on July 6, 2012