The Economic Inspectorate of Flanders will investigate Rock Werchter and Boutique music festival over its refund policy for cashless wristbands, De Standaard reports.
The two Werchter festivals want visitors to pay €3.50 to get the remaining money left on their cashless wristbands after the end of the event.
The Inspectorate is assessing whether this constitutes an unfair commercial practice.
This year, paper vouchers at Werchter have been replaced by a cashless payment system, whereby visitors purchase tokens via a QR code on their entry wristband. They can be redeemed for drinks and food.
Similar systems are already in place at other major Belgian festivals. At Rock Werchter, one “coin” costs €3.50. Graspop and Tomorrowland use a similar system. Just as was commonly an issue with the paper tokens, many festival goers finish the event with a surplus. Customers can typically apply for a refund to exchange tokens back into money.
The fee for this refund at the Werchter festivals is one coin. “That is a refund fee,” Nele Bigaré from organiser Live Nation told De Standaard. “Other organisers do that too. Sometimes the reimbursement is lower, sometimes higher. At the end of this festival season, we will evaluate that extensively as well.”
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In a comment to Het Laatste Nieuws, Consumer Affairs Minister Alexia Bertrand said that the inspectorate is checking whether the level of compensation from the festival organisers is correct.
“I understand that the costs here are higher than for a normal electronic payment, but €3.50– or ten times more than for a standard digital transaction– seems a lot to me. I will therefore have an objective look at whether those amounts are correct,” the Flemish minister said.
To avoid the theft of unused credit, organisers advise against sharing photos of the QR codes and recommend registering the bands online.
