This year’s Sziget Festival ended with the highest number of visitors in its history to date. The event’s cashless payment system, Festipay also saw record transaction volumes, according to a press release sent to the Budapest Business Journal by Cellum, the company providing the technical background.

Festipay launched new wristbands this year, which serve as a combined entry ticket and payment device. Furthermore, using Cellum’s solution, visitors could also for the first time top up their balances before they even arrived, so they didn’t have to waste time with this upon entry. The solution proved highly successful: about one third of all top-up transactions – worth over EUR 4 million – were carried out by users through the festival’s official smartphone app connected to Cellum’s mobile payment system.

Besides facilitating fast and secure payments, the app also allowed festivalgoers to track their purchases in real time. In addition, thanks to a new feature developed by Festipay and Cellum, visitors could have their remaining balances refunded to the card registered in the app once the festival was over.

Cellum CEO János Kóka said: “Festipay and Cellum were the first in Europe to come out with this solution, and we feel justified by the results. Patrons on other continents will hopefully also be able to use our solutions in the near future,” he added.