Over the last decade, debit cards have become a very popular way of paying for things. Now, more people pay with debit than cash, and for the first time in our 42 year history, the Harrison Festival Society can take debit payments! Thanks to the new Square Terminals and an upgrade in the Hall to include wifi coverage (for renters only) we can now take almost every form of payment. Whether it be debit, credit card, cash, even Apple Pay and Google Pay and process them on the spot. You can even tap your card with our new machines.
So long to the ka-
Why didn’t we do this before? Well, it hasn’t always been worth it for us. Since we do relatively low sales numbers on a daily basis compared to retail stores and none of our sites had the proper infrastructure to support secured networks, we would have had to purchase a lot of hardware and accessories and paid monthly fees for not a whole lot of benefit in the long run. It just wasn’t worth it. But since our new machines come as one nice package that functions as both a POS and a terminal (and because they were on sale), now seemed like the right time to jump in and take the plunge into the 21st century.
We’ve considered donating our old imprinters to a museum, but we’re going to hold onto 
Also, since our new website went live 3 years ago, online ticket sales have surpassed over the phone or in-person payments. About 10 days before the last festival, PayPal, our online payment gateway, made changes to their system which caused an issue for some people trying to purchase online. Talk about bad timing… We managed to get by, but we did feel some of the effects. We have since introduced Square as an alternative gateway for purchasing tickets through our website. If you like Paypal and would like to continue using it, that’s cool, it is still an option for you. Since we introduced it, about 76% of patrons have chosen square over PayPal and by all accounts, people have found it easy and simple. Needless to say, we’re happy with it so far!
When you are a charitable arts organization, money is always tight no matter how well the economy is doing or how well your sales are. We have different challenges than for-profit businesses and different reporting standards. Little changes like this may seem small, but for us here at the festival, it means a lot! From the customer experience to CRA reports to grant applications, changes like these have ripple effects throughout and take lots of time and energy to make sure we’re making the right decision. This switch has been in the works for well over a year now, so finally releasing it is very very exciting!
