If you’re attending this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, make sure to take your iPhone and Apple Watch, as you’ll be able to pay for food, drinks, and merchandise with Apple Pay.
Coachella 2016 is a two-weekend happening that kicks off April 15 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. The festival has a partnership with payment processor Square, who will be supplying on-site vendors with Apple Pay-compatible card readers.
Square, Coachella’s official point of sale provider, is bringing its new Contactless and Chip Reader payment device to the festival, meaning iPhone and Apple Watch owners with compatible hardware can leave their wallets at home.
The new Square readers offer support for Apple Pay, Android pay, and EMV, although all forms of payment, (yes, cash too), will be accepted at the festival, which begins next week.
Square had teased the Apple Pay-compatible reader at last year’s Worldwide Developer Conference, and released it to the public in November. Apple began selling the $49 accessory in its retail stores back in February.
Coachella is also taking advantage of Apple’s iBeacon technology, by including iBeacon support into its official iOS app. The technology was first used at Coachella 2014 to send out location-based push notifications and information to iPhone users.
For 2016, the iBeacons will be used to dole out rewards to attendees who link their American Express cards to the official Coachella app. Winners of the “Surprise and Delight” rewards will be treated to various prizes, an official list of which will be released in the near future.
(Updated to correct the paragraph above, we’ve been informed the prizes for the rewards haven’t been finalized yet. We’ll update it when we receive a list.)
