Guns N' Roses concert debacle continues over who's to blame: Organisers or digital payment vendor

The Straits Times
3 March 2017

It has been almost a week since hard rock giants Guns N' Roses held their concert at Changi Exhibition Centre which saw a flood of complaints about the long wait for food, drinks and transportation.

But it is no clearer what caused the problems related to the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) wrist tags that were meant to be used for cashless purchases of food and drink.

On Monday (Feb 27), Sandpiper Digital Payments Asia, which handled the software and systems for the RFID wristbands, said it had raised concerns with concert organiser LAMC Productions that there were not enough queues and staff at each gate to facilitate the large crowds.

Sandpiper added that it had more than enough scanning equipment on site, but there were simply not enough staff provided by the concert organiser to do the job.

On March 3, LAMC e-mailed the media to provide its side of the story, saying among other things that there were inadequate scanners to manage the expected 50,000 concertgoers and that many scanners ran out of charge with no back-ups provided by Sandpiper.

It is the first time the companies have worked together. Separately, they have been involved in large-scale music events - LAMC organised Metallica's concert at Changi Exhibition Centre in 2013, which drew 40,000; and Sandpiper handled digital payments for Road To Ultra 2015, a dance music festival that drew 11,000.

The Straits Times

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