Case Study: Music venue synchronizes payments

The challenge

As a multi-faceted venue with both a restaurant and music hall, the venue operators recognized they needed a payment solution that would allow them to serve fans wherever they are throughout the site. Depending on the event, the bar could be moved from one location to a different location on another night to accommodate need or crowd size. For the restaurants, they wanted to offer patrons a pay-at-the-table solution. Their previous implementation didn’t allow for the flexibility they required nor did it offer the kind of transaction security they required to protect cardholder data. What they needed was a more secure payment device that would meet their stringent security policies that also offered wireless capability. It also needed to work in conjunction with their Oracle Simphony POS and the Oracle Payment interface (OPI).

The solution

After consulting with their Elavon representatives, the team decided to invest in multiple device formats to support their various needs. For permanent pay stations they chose the Lane/3000 PIN pad. To solve for the need for mobility and pay-at-table functionality, the venue deployed wireless capable Move/5000 and Link/2500 terminals.

All of the devices operate using Elavon’s Safe-T Link security solution and are embedded with the Simplify application. The Simplify application protects cardholders by encrypting card data at the point of entry and during the authorization process. For additional protection, Simplify uses tokenization when returning data back to the POS system.

Using their robust WiFi infrastructure, they minimized their network footprint and gained the flexibility needed to accept orders and take payments from anywhere within the venue.

Because the devices are NFC capable, they enabled contactless payments and for even speedier transactions, EMV Quick Chip was implemented. The EMV Quick Chip allows guests to remove their card from the device as soon as the chip is read resulting in a quicker transaction experience.

The result

After launching the Oracle OPI/Elavon solution, the first venue to go live hosted a 3-day event. During the event, the venue doubled their revenue attributing the success largely to the reduction of transaction speeds, which went from 13-15 seconds down to 3-5 seconds. They also went from cash-only bars in set locations to having the ability to accept payment throughout the venue, creating convenience for their customers. They did all of this while also having the flexibility to move and adapt to the crowds. The technology solution has delivered not only an improved customer experience but increased operational efficiencies and revenues. As such, they are accelerating plans to bring the solution to their other locations.