The real struggle
Whenever we’re getting ready to go to an NBA game or a music festival there’s one thing we dread more than anything; the lines, right? If only we could get some work done in the 3 hours we’re stuck waiting in the queue instead of staring at the back of the head of the guy in front to us, who are incidentally doing the same to the guy in front of him, and so on and so forth. CEO Miro Sarbaevs’ brainchild, Arrowpass, claims it has the solution to this conundrum.
Mechanics
Arrowpass functions on Near Field Communication, or NFC for short. NFC is a set of communication protocols that allow our smartphones to interact when they are within 2 inches of each other thereby allowing security to verify the authenticity of our e-tickets tickets instead of holding each individual at the gate for minutes at a time while one guard checks our ticket and the other stares us down just to make sure we’re not frauds. Another impressive feature is that connectivity is not required when it comes to Arrowpass. Arrowpass also allows for cashless closed loop payments. This allows attendees to use an NFC smart card as their digital wallet. This has a bulk of advantages. Cash exchanges are no longer necessary and this cuts out a large chunk of the waiting time. The customer is also more likely to make purchases now that he is free from the irritation of carrying around cash or tickets. In simpler terms, Arrowpass claims to have allowed detection of frauds, entry of e-ticket holders and payment for those needing tickets at unprecedented rates so 3-hour lines get trimmed down to twenty minutes and have made getting into (and buying from) festivals a relatively stress-free experience.
Arrowpass in action
Now the idea might seem nice but something that claims to do so much has to be high maintenance right? Wrong. Ever since being granted $125000 in seed money in December 2015, Arrowpass has successfully piloted two separate outdoor music festivals that totalled around 15000 attendees and was also able to increase sales by 30 percent, the latter in large part due to the efficiency of its payment system. I received glowing reviews from both festivals and was dubbed as being ‘ahead of its time’. While that remains to be seen on an even larger scale it is still impressive that Arrowpass lived up to its potential all the while working in challenging environments and increasing customer sales. This is definitely one to look out for in the coming years.
