Chip And Tuck In

Dubai-based Mirage Promotions has put an end to the old "monopoly money" that fans used to have to buy to get food and beverages at its shows and replaced it with plastic that works like a debit card.

As the country has few purpose-built rooms with modern facilities, the company often finds it has to handle the catering itself. It has previously used paper tokens to reduce the amount of cash spread across the site.

The problem was the same tokens weren’t acceptable across all venues.

Mirage’s new Concert Card, which was first used at Pink’s September 5 show at Dubai Media City, is based on chip technology and deducts the purchase price from funds that fans have loaded into their accounts.

Apart from the obvious advantage of the smart card being usable across all Mirage shows whatever the venue, meaning redundant tokens are a thing of the past, company chief Thomas Ovesen said the new system is cutting down the amount of time fans have to queue to be served.

He said the next step will be to use the Concert Card as a launch pad for a fan club database and offer customers a fully serviced subscription arrangement with newsletters, advance ticket sales and special promotions.