Apple Pay 'fast lanes,' exclusive deals pop up at prominent summer festivals

AppleInsider · June 21, 2018 12:15AM

In what appears to be a new marketing thrust, Apple Pay is being accepted at concession stand "fast lanes" operating at major concerts and festivals this summer, offering customers a quick and easy option to pay for food and drink.

Apple Pay fast lanes are being advertised by event coordinators at BRIC's Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival in New York this week, and the effort looks to be paying off for iPhone and Apple Watch owners.

Festivalgoers attending the concert series can look for Apple Pay "fast lanes" at concession stands dotting the perimeter of the Prospect Park Bandshell grounds. The special lines are much shorter than those for customers paying through conventional means, but whether that is a result of Apple Pay's streamlined transaction process or a dearth of Apple Pay users is unclear.

Some stands are also offering exclusive food and drink deals when customers make a purchase with Apple's payment service. A beverage booth, for example, is handing out one free water with every Apple Pay purchase, while the Bandshell Bites stand is holding a daily special that grants customers three food items for $22, a $2 savings.

In addition to faster service and deals, employees wearing Apple Pay T-shirts are on site to make sure iPhone and Apple Watch owners are properly set up to complete their transactions. It is unknown if the representatives are official Apple staff or event workers, though the effort appears to be backed in part by the tech giant.

Point of sale terminals used to process Apple Pay transactions differ from booth to booth. Some rely on Square hardware and others are using Clover Mini units, though all are adorned with Apple Pay stickers and other marketing material.

Celebrate Brooklyn! is the second major festival this summer to feature Apple Pay fast lanes. The Firefly Festival, which wrapped up on Sunday, pushed the dedicated payment lines as a speedy alternative to credit card and cash last week.

Fast lanes are not to be confused with Apple Pay order ahead integration. That system ties in with an event's app, allowing customers to place food and beverage purchases from their iPhone, then pick up the order from a dedicated window. Order ahead was tested earlier this month at the BottleRock music festival near San Francisco, the same venue where dedicated Apple Pay fast lanes first appeared last year.

chasm · June 21, 2018 12:30AM

Now this is clever. For me the second most-important feature of Apple Pay (beyond security) is how fast it is.

patchythepirate · June 21, 2018 1:15AM

Very nice to see!

nunzy · June 21, 2018 1:39AM

This will help the services income.

backstab · June 21, 2018 2:42AM

Check this out:
My local coffee joint switched to Square about a year ago, but I was sadly disappointed that they didn't get the service with the ApplePay / NFC unit.
Couple of days ago I walk in, and there is the NFC reader sitting next to the register, and a nice big plexiglass advertisement stand "Pay accepted here". I'm thrilled. "Yay! Finally!!" I tell the guy as he draws my coffee. "Yeah" he says. "Apple came by and hit every business on the block".
As I was pulling out my phone I notice on the other side of the register, is the same plexiglass advertisement stand, only this one has an ad in it that reads "15% off when using Pay". I squealed like a little girl.
It seems like Apple may FINALLY be stepping up their retailer focus for ApplePay. It's really about time. If I read about one more bank / credit card institution signing on (ZZzzzz), I was going to scream.

dunks · June 21, 2018 4:24AM

The Apple Pay experience is really great in Australia. Almost every EFTPOS terminal accepts it by default, though I had to change my bank in order to use it. I love it, especially on the watch.

The next step is integration with public transportation cards like Opal. There is zero reason these couldn’t be entirely electronic.

mcdave · June 21, 2018 6:23AM

dunks said:

The Apple Pay experience is really great in Australia. Almost every EFTPOS terminal accepts it by default, though I had to change my bank in order to use it. I love it, especially on the watch.

The next step is integration with public transportation cards like Opal. There is zero reason these couldn’t be entirely electronic.

Verifone screwed up our contactless service here in NZ so most retailers turn it off. Buses have been NFC (Snapper) for some time but no Apple Pay sadly.

rayz2016 · June 21, 2018 7:55AM

Not sure why anyone would expect a queue for NFC payments. That’s the whole point surely.

And by the looks of those pics (no Apple logos on the boards; stickers on terminals instead of the terminals being laser-etched and inlaid with ceramics) I’d say this is something folk are doing off their own backs.

[deleted user] · June 21, 2018 9:39AM

Strictly "Apple-Pay" or any NFC based payment allowed? I remember well over a year ago at a Jimmy Carr gig in Inverness; the bar at the venue had a "contactless only" section which accepted all forms of NFC payment and it was so much easier and quicker. Apple-pay isn't any quicker than a contact-less credit or debit card which we've had for over a decade now, the only bonus is Apple Pay can sometimes be used for transactions over £30 here depending on the retailer - it's often not advertised so most don't bother to even attempt it.

dewme · June 21, 2018 10:31AM

This is very clever and obviously takes a cue from the E-ZPass electronic toll road payment system which is very popular and a time saver. Besides the convenience these systems eliminate a great deal of cash collection which is fraught with many issues. Some toll roads have completely eliminated cash toll collection and staffed toll booths. For Apple Pay or any other electronic payment system to eliminate cash and manual processing they’ll have to come up with a way for non subscribers to participate. Toll roads that don’t have staffed toll booths use license plate readers/cameras.

ihatescreennames · June 21, 2018 11:08AM

dewme said:

This is very clever and obviously takes a cue from the E-ZPass electronic toll road payment system which is very popular and a time saver.

I had forgotten until you mentioned this but that system was called “Fast Lane” when it first opened on I-90 in Massachusetts.

I use Apple Pay at my local grocery store, Big Y, all the time. It’s gotten to the point where I rarely bring my wallet when I go grocery shopping. Yesterday, about 3 minutes before I was ready to check out an announcement came over the PA system saying they apologized but credit and debit card transactions were currently down and they encouraged people to use “alternative methods” of payment, meaning cash. When I made it to check out they first told me they would need to call in my credit card so it would be a longer process. Then they updated and said that may not work either so without cash I could be SOL.

Anyway, once all my items had been scanned I said I would try Apple Pay and sure enough the transaction went through. Just to be clear, other people still could not use their physical cards but NFC was working for some reason.

In my view the biggest obstacles to Apple Pay are lack of awareness and that NFC terminals aren’t ubiquitous yet, but more awareness could help to drive that ubiquity and vice versus. I’m happy to see this type of in-your-face push. Likely some people who were unaware or aware but haven’t used it will give it a try and be mildly delighted.

gatorguy · June 21, 2018 11:59AM

Great promotion idea from Apple. Yeah, mobile payments have absolutely taken off much slower than anyone expected.

For me personally a contact-less credit card (I use AMEX but there's plenty of others) is the better current payment solution if fast and easy payment is the goal, and not for the obvious reason I don't use an iPhone. It will work just as fast as any other tap and pay at any terminal/cash register where Apple Pay or other NFC payment works with the added advantage of traditional swipe if NFC isn't operational or not offered at all.

I've used my phone a few times in the past but when the reader isn't working right it slows everything down while I put my phone away, take out my wallet and grab my card from it. If tap-n-pay is working, great, but if not...
Just easier and faster checkout to have the contact-less card in hand to begin with as far as I'm concerned, but your situation may be different.

As far as I know contact-less cards also "tokenize" transactions so that your actual card number is never revealed similar to the way NFC-enabled smartphone/smartwatch payments are handled, so I don't have concerns about the security.

edited June 2018

georgebmac · June 21, 2018 1:52PM

Grocery stores need to do this!

I have to admit to impatience with people standing staring at their chip card while it gets processed. For small orders it takes as much time to pay as it does to scan and bag their order.

Then I step up with my Apple Watch and "DING", it's paid...

jbdragon · June 21, 2018 5:31PM

I wonder if it was Apple Pay ONLY or any NFC? Android Pay or Samesung Pay, and others. Is this Apple finally pushing this or someone else is just doing it?

I think a lot of people really don't know much about it. May never bother to set it up on their phone let alone use it. Apple makes a small cut on all these transactions. They should be out there pushing it far more than they have been. Maybe it's getting time for a few commercials showing off Apple Pay on the phone and Watch using it in places and the benefits.

Yesterday I had Paypal problems. I was half asleep at got some phone call for a 4 digit pin from Paypal. I wasn't sure what happened? I was sleeping, not using Paypal. So when I got to work I just went and changed my password to a 12 Digit randomized one LasPass picked out. Later in the morning at work, I get a Phone call from a person saying they're from Paypal. Seemed to know things, asked me some questions, I maybe shouldn't have answered. Security questions. In the end, hung up. I didn't give out my Password. I started thinking it was strange as I was talking to him, this the call was dropped. So I went and logged into Paypal, and then I looked into the Pre-Approved payment section, there was a new one created just that day that was for "Samsung Pay Inc." Samsung Pay. What the hell? I have never used Samesung Pay. Would never own one of their phones. What the hell is this?

Luckily there were no charges yet. I deactivated it. Changed my password to 14 digits. Changed my security questions. Contacted Paypal and explained things in case something did happen. They asked if I had T-Mobile, that there's a issue with Clone phones or something?!?! So I contacted T-Mobile and tried to explain things. They didn't know what I was talking about. But locked my account to a 6 digit pin. Can't do anything with my account without that.

Found some info about this doing a Google search, and seems this is also a way to gain access to people's gmail account. I guess to gain more access and to a number of places. So I did a random generated 14 digit password for my gmail account. I think I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and start changing my passwords everywhere to different 14 digit random passwords. Then just rely on Lastpass a whole lot more.

So watch out!!! Best to use LONG random, different passwords at each web site and turn on 2 factor when possible. I have a Security Key for Paypal, where I have to enter password and the random 6 digit code it throws out, but you can get around that key by using the security questions. They really need to allow use of a authenticator. Where you can use Google's, or Microsoft's, or LastPass, etc. Because it's much more secure than being sent a SMS text file which can be intercepted.

edited June 2018

spamsandwich · June 21, 2018 5:38PM

Why is there an assumption that Apple has anything to do with this directly? If I was involved with this event, I’d want to separate the lines to speed things up for the sake of efficiency. That’s all it appears to be.

patchythepirate · June 21, 2018 11:16PM

backstab said:

Check this out:
My local coffee joint switched to Square about a year ago, but I was sadly disappointed that they didn't get the service with the ApplePay / NFC unit.
Couple of days ago I walk in, and there is the NFC reader sitting next to the register, and a nice big plexiglass advertisement stand "Pay accepted here". I'm thrilled. "Yay! Finally!!" I tell the guy as he draws my coffee. "Yeah" he says. "Apple came by and hit every business on the block".
As I was pulling out my phone I notice on the other side of the register, is the same plexiglass advertisement stand, only this one has an ad in it that reads "15% off when using Pay". I squealed like a little girl.
It seems like Apple may FINALLY be stepping up their retailer focus for ApplePay. It's really about time. If I read about one more bank / credit card institution signing on (ZZzzzz), I was going to scream.

Thank you for posting that. That is encouraging news! It's such a fantastic service, I have a feeling that all Apple really needs to do is give it a decent push and it will reach an inflection point that will lead to a rapid acceleration of use.

I hope Apple gives it the same push for online retail. I LOVE being able to use Apple Pay online. It's even more convenient than using it for brick and mortar, so nice not to have to type in billing address, mailing address, payment info...love it.

lostkiwi · June 22, 2018 6:03AM

mcdave said:

dunks said:

The Apple Pay experience is really great in Australia. Almost every EFTPOS terminal accepts it by default, though I had to change my bank in order to use it. I love it, especially on the watch.

The next step is integration with public transportation cards like Opal. There is zero reason these couldn’t be entirely electronic.

Verifone screwed up our contactless service here in NZ so most retailers turn it off. Buses have been NFC (Snapper) for some time but no Apple Pay sadly.

You must be in Wellington, right? Great city.
Yeah, I would be really stoked if we could use ApplePay for monthly transit passes. But I can’t see it happening for some time.
It would also be fantastic if we had transit directions on AppleMaps, but that is another issue.

I’m interested in your comment about Verifone. My understanding is that the reason retailers disable all contactless payments is because of the extortionate fees the card providers charge for anything contactless here. Are you in the industry and have heard any different?

edited June 2018

Apple Pay 'fast lanes,' exclusive deals pop up at prominent summer festivals

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