RFID Wristbands. A Simple Guide

Attend any festival, conference, or industry event these days and everyone is talking about the benefits of RFID wristbands.

The most popular benefits are the expected increase in the amount spent on concessions by your attendees along with the data you can collect about those attendees.

RFID-enabled wristbands communicate with a reader when tapped against it, which in turn sends data back to a server.

The readers can be hand-held or a stand-alone device.

RFID wristbands are typically used for:

1. Entry and Access Control  – i.e. controlling who can go where within an event
2. Cashless Payments – instead of paying with a credit card or cash, you “load” your wristband with credits that are used for purchases
   • Cashless payments can be CLOSED LOOP or OPEN LOOP
   • Closed loop is the most common solution and allows a user to load a predetermined number of ‘credits’ on a wristband that are deducted with each purchase. The wristband can be “topped up” again and again.
   • Open loop allows a user to “register” their wristband on a website and attach a credit card to it that is charged every time a purchase is made.
3. Loyalty programs and gamification – tap your wristband at various places to earn points to be redeemed for merchandise or for entries to win a grand prize.
4. Social media integrations – tap a wristband to share photos to social media streams.

You can use RFID for either entry and/or access control. In fact, for smaller events, we recommend you start by only using them for entry/access control. You can add cashless payments the following year once you understand the infrastructure and technology involved.

Contact us to learn more about how we can help you get started with RFID wristbands at your event!

Freshtix RFID Solutions for Festivals from Freshtix on Vimeo.