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Download Festival-Goers Left Beerless After Cashless Cock-up

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by

Jay Curd
in , , ,

Thousands of revellers hoping for food and booze after the long trek to this year’s Download found themselves out of pocket when the festival’s new cashless payment system failed on day one.

The unhappy campers started arriving at the Donnington site on Wednesday, looking forward to a weekend of metal from the likes of Slipknot, Judas Priest and “The Hottest Band in the World” – KISS. At the gates they were each handed the event’s newest innovation – Dog Tags (actually a wrist worn band) featuring RFID wireless contact-less technology that were supposed to be pre-loadable with dosh and designed to prevent the loss of wallets and eliminate the frustrating festival experience of queuing at cash machines.

However, a cock-up caused the funds to not be transferred and the once promising idea suffered ‘minor technical issues’ according to the organisers who apologised to revellers who were without any way to pay for their overpriced burgers and lukewarm beer.

In a great strike of irony, the system that was intended to remove queues from Download festival has actually only gone and caused more lines to form as the unwashed masses have been charging to the information desks in hope of salvation from their starvation.

The Download festival organisers might be having a bit of a rethink about their wireless payment gimmick and should probably try to be a bit less smart next year, especially after this most sobering situation.