Netpositive Streamlines Access to International Music Festivals with Regula ID Verification Solution

Netpositive is a Hungarian company that provides IT services for various large-scale events with its self-developed Backstage Ticketing ecosystem. Mainly, it assists with online ticket retail via advanced, white-label webshops, and also a number of onsite services, including complete access management of international music festivals, some of which are considered mega-events, such as Sziget or Untold, attracting up to 100,000 visitors daily.

Through various bespoke IT solutions, the company enables:

• ticket sales,
• accreditation,
• access control,
• crowd management,
• and integrated cashless payments.

Challenge

The backbone of access services to large-scale events is the so-called “redemption” process, during which visitor tickets are checked and exchanged for wristbands with designated access rights for a given period and/or to predefined event zones. For this process to function properly, it is necessary to identify event visitors by their identity documents. In some countries, this process is required by law; in others, it is done for security reasons.

Netpositive used to fulfill document verification with the help of designated ID scanners provided by a third-party vendor. Apart from that, the company also employed a range of other devices, such as barcode readers, NFC readers, and laptops. With POS terminals for cashless payments, too many physical devices were installed at every redemption point. This created difficulties in managing and maintaining them.

To make the process more efficient and streamlined, Netpositive decided to switch to mobile ID verification (IDV) via a special app empowered by IDV software. Considering the international and large-scale nature of the events they supported with IT services, the company required a solution to enable fast document verification of visitors of all possible nationalities or residences. Also, it was crucial for Netpositive to have an on-premises solution, as they could not share sensitive personal data with third-party providers.

Solution

After performing extensive research and following a partner’s recommendation, Netpositive opted for Regula Document Reader SDK, a comprehensive identity document verification software solution. Within one month, Regula’s solution was seamlessly built into Netpositive’s Backstage Ticketing Access Management App and integrated into their larger ecosystem, where they manage everything from ticket sales to redemption checks to event dashboards.

Depending on the scale of the event, Netpositive arranges 20-120 redemption points. Now, all of them are equipped with multi-purpose mobile devices powered by a special app, which has replaced the range of devices they previously used.

Regula Document Reader SDK is responsible for reading and verifying passports, ID cards, and driver’s licenses that music festival visitors provide at venue access points. When a document is scanned with a mobile device camera, Regula’s solution:

• instantly identifies its type,
• reads and validates data from all document zones, including barcodes and NFC chips,
• and cross-checks the data to spot any inconsistencies that may indicate fraud.

All this is done automatedly in mere seconds.

To add an additional layer of security and trustworthiness in ID verification, Regula Document Reader SDK allows data from NFC chips to be re-verified from biometric documents on the server side in the customer’s secure perimeter. This check helps to ensure that the chip is genuine and its data has not been cloned or manipulated.

Also, Regula Document Reader SDK supports the verification of nearly any identity document from any part of the world. This is possible thanks to Regula’s most extensive identity document template database, the most comprehensive in the world, which consists of over 13,900 templates from 249 countries and territories. Considering the wide range of places event visitors may come from, this significantly facilitates the redemption process.

All the sensitive ID data that Netpositive obtains when verifying visitors’ IDs is securely stored in the company’s centralized system, never leaving its perimeter. The data is deleted after the event is over.

Result

The Regula-based solution has already been used successfully at two large music festivals that took place at the beginning of 2024: Untold Dubai, visited by over 185,000 people, and Massif in Romania, with a capacity of 12,000 people per day.

These events showed that the new mobile-based access has significantly sped up the redemption process, reducing manual labor and queues. Plus, Netpositive received critical feedback from the entry personnel, who expressed a clear preference for the new mobile solution over the old multi-device setup.

In the long run, Netpositive expects to cut expenses on device procurement, and expects to significantly reduce the number of technical problems involved with the redemption process, which were relatively frequent with the previous solution.

We are still at an early stage of the access admission process transformation, and we assume we will get more tangible results during the coming season of summer festivals. But we are very sure of one thing: with this new solution with Regula Document Reader SDK at the core, we made a real innovation. The reinvention of the redemption process helped us become more competitive, promoting our position in the market.

—Mátyás Török, Netpositive’s founder and CEO