Wheels and Fins Festival, an annual music and action-sports beach-side weekender, will be completely cashless for the first time this year.

The festival is introducing new cloud-based cashless technology to help reduce queuing times and improve security for 2019.

Wheels and Fins have partnered with event payment platform TicketCo to provide a ‘digital wallet’ for visitors to the two-day gathering at Joss Bay in Kent. The festival is expecting a 10,000-strong crowd over two days.

Previous headliners at the independent event, which mixes music with surfing and skateboarding, have included Faithless, the Libertines and Feeder.

David Melmoth, director and founder of Wheels and Fins Festival, said: “We have partnered with TicketCo to help make our event even better this year. Previously we used a token system for food and drinks, and by using TicketCo’s digital wallet app we’re aiming to make the whole process as quick and as painless as possible.

“You just download the app to your phone and top it up wherever you are on site before swiping like a contactless payment at the bar. The key for us was making transactions quick and simple to improve the event goer experience.

“While for us as organisers it means we don’t have to worry about the security implications of having lots of cash on site. Crucially, we can also keep a real-time log of stock levels, so we can react to whatever drinks are proving popular on the day and the keep the bars fully stocked.”

David Kenny, TicketCo UK country manager, said: “We’re delighted to be working with such an adventurous event as Wheels and Fins. It’s really grown to become a massive part of the festival calendar and we know our user-friendly app will make the Wheel and Fins experience even better for visitors. Our app will make grabbing food and drink at Wheels and Fins quick and worry-free so people can spend more time enjoying the festival.”