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Gurten’s Cash Call
A software glitch with the cashless payment system had Gurten Festival chief Philippe Cornu appealing for punters to bring some cash, but by the end of the four-dayer he was happy his cashless experiment ultimately was a success.
On the first day, Cornu called a press conference to tell Gurten-goers to bring some readies or the festival’s commercial infrastructure would stall.
Photo: Courtesy Gurten Festival
“At that late stage we were under pressure to do anything that would work,” he told Pollstar. However, Cornu says he will likely use the YouChip cashless system, provided by giant German production giant EPS, again.
“After the first day it worked very well and we’ve had emails from fans who think cashless is the way to go,” he explained. “Although we started cash only, by the end of the festival over 50 percent of people had switched to the cashless system. We ran them side by side.”
The 30th edition of Gurten hit a crowd record by pulling 77,000 over four days.
There were 17,000 on the first day, which was followed by three 20,000-capacity sellouts, Apart from headliner Die Toten Hosen, which was also celebrating 30 years of touring, the acts helping Gurten get its money’s worth July 18-21 included Emeli Sande, The Smashing Pumpkins, Volbeat, Kosheen, Hadouken, Bastille, and Knife Party.