Test-Achats concludes investigation into payments at music festivals

Belgium’s consumer protection agency Test-Achats has published the findings of its investigation into various music festivals, mainly to assess how consumer-friendly on-site payment methods were.

“Many festivals swear by a mandatory cashless system, where visitors can often only pay using a digital token,” said Test-Achats spokesperson Laura Clays.

“We’re not fans of this, especially when that token is difficult to convert into euros.”

In a survey, 64% of respondents stated that such festival currencies make it harder to keep track of spending.

As an example, Clays noted Tomorrowland’s pricing structure: “You can only buy Pearls [the festival's own currency] in €20 increments, for which you get 10.5 Pearls. A strawberry matcha latte costs 4.5 Pearls and a Jupiler 0% costs 2.25 Pearls.”

In real euro terms, the latte costs €8.57 and the alcohol-free beer €4.28.

The high costs involved in recovering any remaining balance, along with prices not being clearly displayed at all food and drink stalls, were also noted as issues.

The Test-Achats ranking of consumer friendliness places the Brosella festival in Brussels and Francofolies in Spa as the most consumer-friendly, with each achieving the maximum score of 10.

The worst scoring was Les Ardentes in Liège with 2.5 points. There, festival-goers pay €1.33 just to activate the payment system. To retrieve their unused vouchers back at the end of the festival, they have to pay an additional €4.

Couleur Café scored 5.5, with Test-Achats docking points for, among other things, the fact that festival-goers cannot pay for food and drink vouchers directly with cash.