Mainstage Festivals is a market leader in destination festivals. Unlike traditional festival operators, Mainstage Festivals offer 100% full-service packages to festival-goers, looking after them from the minute they first see the package, to when they leave the resort.
They organise and run some of the most revered music events such as Snowboxx, Ion and Kala, in idyllic locations in France, Albania and New Zealand.
The challenge
As often is the case with the travel sector, Mainstage Festivals were facing extortionate fees for processing cards. Travel companies can be paying up to 2% or even more to process card payments, whilst at risk of friendly fraud.
On high-value products like festival tickets, card fees can eat into margins. For Mainstage Festivals, finding a more flexible and cost-effective way to accept payments would be a monumental shift for the business.
The solution
Mainstage Festivals saw the opportunity that Open Banking payments could deliver to their business, and how Vyne could take their offering one step further.
Traditional card payments have many intermediaries such as card issuers, acquirers and schemes. Vyne does away with these intermediaries and delivers a fairer, more cost-effective payment method for merchants, which removes the risk of friendly fraud.
The results
"1/3 of customers are using it today, but we think it's going to go up to 60%"
Rob Tominey - Chairman + Co-Founder Mainstage Festivals
How Vyne opens up monthly instalment payments for Mainstage Festivals
Mainstage Festivals recognised the significant benefits that accepting payments with Vyne would deliver to them and their consumers. With Open Banking payments being a relatively new concept, they wanted to incentivise their customers to pay with Vyne.
Mainstage Festivals and Vyne worked together to deliver a monthly instalment payment method giving customers more flexibility when paying for their festival tickets. Instead of paying for their ticket in one go, customers could pay for the initial deposit and split the remainder over time, completing each payment using Vyne’s Pay with bank solution.
“Paying the final 50-70% in instalments is a real win for customers, it’s great that we can give customers the option of paying in instalments."
The future
Variable Recurring Payments (VRPs) are the next major innovation in the evolution of Open Banking. VRP takes the same principle as the Direct Debit scheme, but provides customers greater control and flexibility over their payments. Customers can safely grant payment service providers (PSPs), such as Vyne, permission to take payments from their bank account on a recurring basis. But unlike the Direct Debit scheme, payments are taken in seconds not days, and can only fall within the agreed parameters. Customers can enjoy more control and transparency than existing alternatives, whilst merchants receive all the benefits of Open Banking payments such as lower cost and real-time, tracked transactions.
The introduction of VRP’s to Open Banking will enable Mainstage Festivals to take their payment instalment offering to the next level. Firstly, the convenience of VRP’s means customers will only need to authorise payment once, making the sign up process as seamless as possible. Secondly, the introduction of VRP’s will allow Mainstage Festivals to offer their customers even more flexible payment options.
"Vyne helped us deliver an instalment payment option. We are now able to offer our customers a flexible payment option and create a better customer experience, whilst reducing the amount we’re spending on processing card payments."
Rob Tominey - Chairman + Co-Founder Mainstage Festivals
Learn more about Mainstage Festivals.
Follow Snowboxx on Instagram. One of Mainstage Festival's biggest music festivals at Europe's best ski resort.
