NASSAu, BAHAMAS — While acknowledging that there were some challenges at the International Cultural Wine and Food Festival this past weekend, executives of digital payment solutions provider Kanoo as well as festival organizers say that the event was a “smashing success”, and a huge step toward greater digital adoption.
Nicholas Rees, Kanoo’s chairman and co-founder, said during a press conference yesterday that the company has already received several expressions of interest following this week’s culture fest engagement.
Rees noted that Kanoo, which was the vendor solution provider for the festival which only accepted Sand Dollar as payment, was not at all averse to criticism as it seeks to improve on its offerings.
“We welcome all criticism. We embrace criticism. We embrace change. I would like to state for the record from our perspective, the weekend was a smashing success, not without its challenges,” said Rees.
“There were some logistical challenges in terms of ingress and regress. We identified and we were able to implement overnight technical solutions that eased the burden and actually limited the need for persons to stand in line,” said Rees.
“We saw adoption ahead of the event,” he continued.
“Those persons that did were able to fly through, they didn’t have to stand in line. There was an issue for a large majority of them. The Central Bank was instrumental in making this a success. At the event, we had about 600 new wallets adopted which is significant. That was only a fraction of the people who visited the event. The festival was monumental and a smashing success.”
Kimani Brathwaite, the company’s chief operating officer, who is also a co-founder explained that the company made an update to its payment solution Saturday night which resulted in an easier transition for patrons and led to a significant boost in transaction volumes on the festival’s second day.
“On Saturday you had to come in with a credit card or debit to fund your band. We made an update Saturday night so that on Sunday persons didn’t physically have to go to a loading station but could click on a link and could use their credit card or debit card without having to interact with an actual person,” said Braithwaite who also noted that existing Kanoo customers had the ability to link their festival bands to their mobile wallets.
The Kanoo executives also explained that while the company was the event’s vendor solution provider, it was also able to load Sand Dollar into other authorized financial institution (AFI) wallets. Rees explained, “What we did find was a lot of people are trying to pay with a Suncash token on even a Kanoo token. The only thing being accepted however was the Sand Dollar.”
ICWFF chairperson Janet Johnson also touted the success of this year’s event and stated that organisers are sticking with the Sand Dollar and digital payment solution going forward.
“We are delighted that we were able to bring the 2022 food festival. We are very pleased with the outcome of the festival. We had some challenges leading up to it and we had to pivot from the home of the festival -the Botanical Gardens – which has been the home for the festival for 24 years and find a blueprint that fit the footprint that we needed,” said Johnson, who noted that confirmation that the original venue was unavailable came seven weeks prior to the event.
Still, Johnson said that Collins House Gardens “worked out well”. “We are pleased that we are a festival on the cutting edge, and we were delighted when Kanoo came and asked if we would be interested and also Sand Dollar. We had some challenges, but we knew what the end goal was and we needed to start somewhere. We are moving to a digital platform globally and I’m delighted that The Bahamas is ahead of the curve.”
There were 126 vendors who participated in the event however Johnson said that organizers do not yet have a tally of how many persons attended the event.
