Festival Wristbands and the Cashless Economy

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 09:00:00 +0000

The little plastic band gets fastened on at the gate and stays there for the whole weekend, through the rain and the beer and the sleep, until you cut it off days later at home. Somewhere inside it is a chip the size of a grain of rice, and by the time you leave the field that chip has recorded a surprising amount about who you are and how you spend. The cashless festival is now the default across most of Europe, and it is one of those changes that arrived dressed as pure convenience while quietly rewriting the whole economics of the event.

The Classic Album, In Full: The Anniversary-Tour Racket

Tue, 04 Oct 2022 09:00:00 +0000

The poster tells you everything before you have read the small print. A band you loved a long time ago, a famous album title, and the words “performed in its entirety” — often with an anniversary number bolted on, thirtieth, fortieth, whatever the maths demands. You already know the setlist. You have known it for decades. That, depending on your mood, is either the whole appeal or the whole problem, and I have stood in rooms feeling both at once.

Music Economics on vo.rs

Festival Wristbands and the Cashless Economy

The Classic Album, In Full: The Anniversary-Tour Racket