The real problem comes when the system breaks down- which I've seen happen at plenty of festivals. At that point if cash isn't an option then commerce simply stops- screwing both vendor and customer alike.

Even if you could get your money back, you're still waiting at lines to recharge the bracelet. It's a joke.

With cash, you just come prepared and withdraw at any ATM long before the festival. Bracelets didn't solve any problem except disconnect the money handling event from the purchasing event so that you lose track of it, like how microtransactions are never priced in actual currency.

If that’s because the festival organizers don’t let you retrieve your money easily or without a cost, that’s an issue with the festival management and not with the idea of digital money.

I’ve been to a festival which allowed us to withdraw money freely (I think they had some restrictions such as only 1 free withdrawal after the festival was over, and/or it had to be done within a week or so) but that allowed us to simply load in excess money so we never had to recharge. That worked really well for us.

The ability for poor implementations to exist is itself a strike against the general concept.

Have to load money, have to retrieve money, and have zero insight into how much I’ve already spent without even more apps or interfaces.

Handling cash is a hassle in many ways:

1. It's slow. Obviously it is not slow in the best case when the customer throws in the exact change, but it is _really_ slow in the probably more typical case when the drunkard is at the counter and starts to dig into the pockets and find out if he has enough coins or when the seventh customer in the row wants to pay his ten cent lollipop with a hundred dollar bill and you run out of change.

2. It ties capital to keep sufficient amount of change in all of the booths.

3. It is difficult/expensive to manage securely and safely. You need to figure out how to stop personnel and other people stealing the money. Also your personnel likely feels more safe when they know that nobody can think that hey can come and try to steal money from you because you simply have none.

Or if I'm feeling extra tech-y, I can do that with my watch or phone.

2. A negligible amount for a vendor on a festival.

3. Not a problem on a festival. Booths tend to be manned by two persons because of other safety factors anyway, so staff stealing isn't an issue, and any organised criminality on a festival is usually limited to (relatively) low risk, high reward crime: pick-pocketing (smartphones in particular).

And especially the ‘takes longer’ argument just shifts the time people are waiting to the charging station, or to their own homes, if they’re charging beforehand.

I think it’s fairly easy to make any change handling easy by making everything cost multiples of $1

Even if some transactions have extra friction such as ID checks for age-restricted purchases, the less intrusive solution is color coded "dumb paper" wristbands.

  have zero insight into how much I’ve already spent 

If every single actual implementation of an idea is bad then maybe the idea wasn’t such a great one either.

Contactless payments with a regular credit card are as far as this idea needed to go, everything else is either a gimmick or a rip-off attempt.

for a $5 processing fee

Except when they have no change (forcing you to find someone willing to change it or wait for them to do so) or refuse to accept a large bill. I often choose to use cash, but it's really not frictionless.

Music venues have some interesting procedures, Alpine valley allows under an oz of weed to be brought in. They have college girls carrying backpacks with 40k in cash. There is an off duty cop directly behind though.

Why do they allow weed to be brought in? Why do they have college girls carrying cash in a backpack? Why so much cash? Why is there an off-duty cop following her around? Isn't an off-duty cop just an ordinary member of the public? If a cop is required shouldn't it be an on-duty cop? If it's somehow a trap to catch drug dealers, how is it meant to work? Why do they limit the amount of weed? And why are they trying to catch drug dealers at all?

I'd guess the "college girls carrying 40k in cash in a backpack" were employees carrying cash out from whatever business/booth they were running and taking it to their bank or head office or whatnot, and the "off-duty" cop behind them was there acting as a security guard; since that's a somewhat common side gig for cops, and in may places, they're still given all the power and authority an "on duty" cop has.

I don't get the connection to the weed (legal or otherwise, it has never been an interest of mine), but perhaps it explains the other bit.

As for the second part, off duty cops would moonlight as security guards. And the college girls could blend in. With the large crowds it was a way keep a low profile for making cash pickups from the dozen different beer/food stations. It's pretty smart. You would never think twice.

It’s a fairly typical internal control for that type of operation.

Spending some cash sometimes increases the complexity of my pocket considerably, which is fine in practice and all, but just feels wrong to part of my brain.

I’d rather have the bracelet solution and don’t have to worry about having 100 coins in my pockets or losing my wallet.

If your card gets stolen however, you go to the bank, fill out a ton of forms, pay a fee for losing your card. Wait a few days for your new card to be delivered in the mail. And then, finally can you pay again. In the meanwhile, you are forced to pay with... cash! Which nobody accepts, because not having a debit card is socially unacceptable in our society.

But try losing your card overseas and see how you feel then... Especially if you have to put a stop on your card... Slow and very painful...

Unless you have a spare you'll be asking a friend to use Western Union for bridge finance.

Depends on the card. With Amex or Diners Club it’s not a problem.

Not sure which country you are talking about but the vast majority of people go to an ATM not the bank to get cash. You still need a debit card to get cash from an ATM.

I haven't been to a bank for getting cash in 10 years. And as you say, ATMs are where you get cash.

Self-checkout person was going "what the hell?" on that one. I also heard her talking to others about being hungry from break being delayed. I gave her the grapes after explaining what I was doing. She was happy, too. Probably did it herself at some point haha. Cashiers trip out to this day if I tell them about that whenever someone is buying a candy bar or something to get cash back. Occasionally, person in line leaves to get a grape. Just one. :)

But I actually assumed just the cash was gone. Either bank or ATM works fine in that situation.

You meant 'more', right?

If you are lucky they will return any unused credit automatic to your credit card without any fees. I would like to know how common that is and what kind of terms and conditions most such system has. My cynicism tells me its about as abusive as they can get away with but to be fair I have not tested it (since I either refuse to prepay on principle or only get the exact amount I have decided to already spend).

https://www.facebook.com/flx/warn/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jwz.o...

Disney does that at Disneyland and Disney World in America: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/plan/my-disney-experience/...

You can also use it to unlock you hotel room and to link to those photographs that are taken of you when you're on the rides.

I watched a presentation on this, and it's actually very interesting how they manage the ride experience so that even during a system outage they can still let people get on the rides.

Makes the lines for drinks move so fast, it’s really outstanding.

I can see value for certain specialist places, like a resort where everyone is wearing swimwear. Or a fetish club.

By introducing a new payment method they can be sure that everyone has access to it and limit it to just the bracelets.

How do they deal with tips?

At the Mirage, tips work just like a credit card transaction would - the bartender has an iPad sitting in front of them and you choose preset options or enter a custom one.

Typically you place your order with the bartender, they'll ring it all up on the terminal, and by the time you've finished tapping your wristband on the reader and choosing a tip amount the bartender is done making your drinks. No hassle with pens and receipts and handing cards around or any of that.

Out of all the festivals, etc, I've been to where they do wristband-based payment instead of accepting cards directly, Avant Gardner / Brooklyn Mirage have the best setup IMO.

Apparently Billfold is the vendor: https://www.billfoldpos.com/

Is there normally hassle? In Europe, and I think this generalisation holds in the countries that commonly pay with a card, the terminal is either mounted on the bar facing the customer, or is portable and left in a similar position.

In any case, there's never a pen, receipts mostly go immediately in the bin unless someone is claiming expenses, and the card never leaves the customer's hand.

So it's little different from a contactless bracelet, except I trust Europay-MasterCard-Visa more han a POS supplier.

It helps that there are no tips. If the number on the screen looks reasonable, I don't touch the terminal at all.

The upside is that the US is at this point better at holding on to the principle of being able to use cash everywhere in addition to other payment options; something that is starting to become a problem in Europe.

Outside of nightlife and restaurants, I almost never deal with paper signatures anymore. Pretty much all retail, etc, does digital signatures and digital receipts, paper receipt upon request.

Its still pretty backwards compared to how most things credit card related work in Europe, but gets the job done and is indeed gradually getting better over here (and, as some of the other posts have mentioned, the saving grace if you don't want to deal with any of this is that cash is almost universally accepted).

I wonder how many make theirs 1234