The French company Weezevent and the Belgian company PlayPass, the two major players in dematerialized payment solutions (known as “cashless”) for event organizers and leisure and tourism venues, are merging to form the major European cashless entity.
Photo: This merger takes place during a health crisis that has been affecting the entire event industry for the past year / Credits © Edouard Barra
The new entity, with 6 offices around the world, 100 employees, and multiple strategic partnerships, is present on all continents and already supports 1,200 event producers (Live Nation, Les Vieilles Charrues, Ineos Sport, Dour Festival, Vendée Globe, PSG, Ocesa…) in cashless by processing 400 M€ in transactions with 110,000 payment terminals, for 5 million spectators each year.
For several years now, cashless has been revolutionizing the management of on-site points of sale for promoters and improving the experience of the public, who pay for their drinks, meals, merchandise, etc. more easily, either thanks to an access bracelet, subscriber card equipped with an NFC chip, smartphone or a dedicated application.
“David, Dale and their teams [David De Wever and Dale Hofkens, co-founders of PlayPass] share with Weezevent the same passion and vision,” says Pierre-Henri Deballon, CEO of Weezevent. “After 8 years of healthy competition, the time has come to form a new team that is stronger, more ambitious and more confident.”
“After 8 years of healthy competition, the time has come to form a new team that is stronger, more ambitious and more confident.”
This merger reinforces the profitability of both structures in an even stronger group, increases their operational capacity to better satisfy customers via offices in Paris, London, Madrid, Antwerp, Lausanne and Montreal, and allows them to pool their investment and innovation capacities in a single technology with more than 50 dedicated developers.
For his part, David De Wever, CEO of PlayPass believes that “the two companies are very complementary and the combination of their know-how makes it possible to form the leader in cashless. The return of events to a normal post-Covid situation will accelerate the adoption of cashless in the still reluctant countries. It is a question of being ready for the market while continuing to innovate. The union with Weezevent is an opportunity for us, our teams and our customers”.
The two companies are also developing solutions for online ticketing, accreditation and access control that have already made it possible to issue and control more than 100 million access tickets.
This merger takes place during a health crisis that has been affecting the entire event industry for the past year, and which has raised new expectations. Pre-ordering Click & Collect consumption, social distancing measures and access control protocols adapted to gatherings are just some of the challenges that the group is already meeting.
This article was first published in Silicon Luxembourg magazine. Read our full Fintech edition.
