Cashless POS ecosystem for fast, high-pressure event environments

🗒️ Before we get into it, a little context.

Due to NDA restrictions and the nature of this fast-moving startup, I can’t share every screen or internal doc — but after checking in with the founders, I got the green light to share selected parts of the work and the thinking behind it.

You won’t see a polished Figma handoff here — but you’ll get a look at the decisions, challenges, and design choices that shaped the product along the way.

Overview

Billfold is a cashless point-of-sale system designed for festivals, stadiums, and high-volume event spaces.

It lets guests link their payment method to an RFID wristband, tap to pay in seconds, and skip the chaos of card, cash, and queues.

On the vendor side, bartenders and staff use a dedicated POS interface built for speed, clarity, and high-pressure environments.

When I joined the project, we didn’t have hardware or wireframes — just an idea and a team willing to build something new.

Over the following years, I helped shape it into a full ecosystem – from the point-of-sale app to the wristband linking kiosks – that’s now used at major events around the world.

The Challenge

Designing for live events isn’t like designing for a checkout in a store. It’s loud. It’s fast. People are distracted, emotional and often not fully sober🤪. Their attention is everywhere but the screen. Our challenge was to make the purchase experience dead simple, lightning fast, and foolproof.

Mistakes had to be nearly impossible. A single mis-tap could charge someone $100 instead of $10 — and in that environment, there’s no time to explain. Speed was everything: saving even one second per transaction meant shorter lines and more revenue.

And we weren’t just designing one screen — we built an entire ecosystem in parallel: vendor POS, guest interfaces, RFID registration, refund tools, admin dashboards, and onboarding flows.

My Role

I joined Billfold when there was no design team, no interface, and no real product — just a vision, a rough hardware prototype, and the need to move fast. For several years, I was the sole designer on the team, responsible for shaping the entire user experience across both the vendor-facing POS and the guest-facing check-in kiosks.

I was designing this from afar, in Russia, while events were happening in the US. I couldn’t just pop into a festival to see how people used it. Instead, I relied on user videos, event staff feedback, and constant iteration with the engineering team on-site.

I turned those observations into product flows, wireframes, and interactive prototypes — constantly iterating to meet the messy, real-world demands of live events. Over time, those prototypes became the final product: a polished UI, scalable system, and a reliable experience that now supports thousands of users around the world.

Product & Feature Breakdown

To tackle such a broad ecosystem, I broke the problem space into chunks. I’ll briefly outline the key components I designed and our approach to each.

The Billfold Ecosystem

  • Vendor-Facing POS (Point of Sale) – The tablet interface the bartender or cashier uses. Needs to be ultra-fast and error-proof.

  • Guest-Facing Screen – A display facing the customer, showing them their order and providing feedback.

  • Wristband Registration Kiosk – A self-service station where guests link their card to an RFID wristband upon entry.

  • Event Organizer Dashboard – A web interface for managers to monitor transactions, manage refunds, etc.

  • RFID Access & Additional Features: Controls for entry management (e.g., scanning wristbands at gates) and engagement tools like promotions and charity donations via wristbands.

The Vendor Experience

At the heart of every festival, stadium, and high-volume event is a vendor — moving fast, multitasking under pressure, and trying to survive the rush without friction.
For Billfold, the vendor-facing POS system had to do more than function — it had to speed things up, not slow anyone down.

This wasn’t a generic retail system. It was purpose-built for loud music, quick hands, and zero time to spare. When it worked right, it faded into the background — letting vendors pour drinks, chat with customers, and keep the line moving without fiddling with a register.

    • Dual-Screen Layout: We used a hardware setup with two screens back-to-back (one facing staff, one facing guest). I crafted the UI so that the staff side and guest side showed appropriate info without one person accidentally doing something on the other’s behalf. This separation meant no accidental taps by guests and clear communication – each side of the transaction had their own view.

    • Large, Legible UI: The staff interface featured big buttons and text. Picture a bartender who’s multitasking – our buttons for each item (beer, soda, etc.) were huge touch targets. We chose high-contrast colors for visibility under various lighting.

    • Rapid actions: The flow from selecting items to payment had to be lightning fast. We streamlined it to essentially two steps: select items (via quick-touch buttons), then the guest taps their wristband to pay – done. No extra confirmations unless something goes wrong. On average, transactions took ~2 seconds to process, which we clearly hit as a goal. There were lots of subtle design choices to achieve this: e.g., defaults to most common quantity, automatic total calculation, etc., all to minimize thinking and taps.

    • Fail-safes for Offline: We knew connectivity at events can be spotty. If the POS lost internet, it would locally cache transactions and the UI would give a small warning, but otherwise allow continued operation. This was critical; a network outage shouldn’t stop the beer sales! From a UX perspective, the challenge was assuring users that it’s okay to continue when offline and making sure no data is lost or duplicated – we nailed this by lots of edge-case testing and clear indicators.

    • Additional Vendor Tools: We included features vendors at events need, like quickly issuing refunds or voids (e.g., if someone changed their mind on a purchase). I made sure those flows were accessible but also double-confirmed (to avoid abuse or mistakes).tion text goes here

The Guest-Facing Screen

At a festival, the last thing a guest wants is to wonder where their money went. No receipts, no paper trail, loud music, a packed crowd — handing over a card or tapping a wristband can feel uncertain.

For Billfold, the guest-facing screen wasn’t just a second display — it was a trust-building tool. It showed what was being charged, confirmed each tap, and gave people confidence that their payment was accurate and intentional.

    • Live Order Display: As each item was added, it appeared in real-time on the guest screen — e.g., “Beer ×2 – $12.” This gave guests a transparent, receipt-like view of their order and helped prevent confusion or disputes.

    • Simple, Confident Checkout: Once the order was ready, the screen showed a clear total and prompt: “Total $24. Tap wristband to pay.” After payment, it instantly confirmed with a big green checkmark.

    • Kind Error Feedback: If a tap failed (e.g., card declined), the screen showed clear, neutral messaging like “Card declined – try another card” The goal was to resolve the moment without confusion or embarrassment — tone and clarity mattered as much as the UX flow.

    • Subtle Promotions (Billfold Engage): During idle times, the screen could display sponsor promos or venue messages. I designed a banner area that appeared only when no transaction was in progress, and kept it visually quiet to avoid distracting from the main task flow.

    • One-Tap Donations (Billfold Give): After checkout, guests could choose to round up their total and donate spare change to charity. I’m proud that this design led to a surprisingly high opt-in rate – it turns out many people in a good mood at a festival are happy to donate their spare change if you make it one tap.

The Guest Journey: Check-In Kiosks

Before anyone could use Billfold, they needed that RFID wristband linked to their payment. Traditionally, this might be done by staff at a booth – slow and requiring sharing credit cards, etc. We designed a self-service check-in kiosk to streamline this. This was a standalone touchscreen at the event entrance.

    • Fast Flow: I designed the flow to be as few steps as possible: Tap your wristband to start → Swipe or insert your credit card (or select Apple/Google Pay) → (Optional: enter phone/email if you want receipts) → Done, enjoy the event. It typically took under a minute.

    • Clarity and Reassurance: Each step included a progress indicator (“Step 2 of 3”) so users understood the flow was quick and simple. We used clear visuals — like an icon of a wristband being tapped or a credit card — to make the process intuitive at a glance. At the end, the confirmation screen told them their wristband was now their wallet. And for added reassurance, if they entered contact info, we sent a confirmation text with a link.

    • UX for Difficult Environments: These kiosks might be in sunlight or nighttime and used by thousands of attendees, some of whom may not speak English well (in international events). We allowed users to choose their language at the start, and I made sure the UI used simple phrasing, large text, and universal icons.

    • No Bottlenecks: Recognizing that the check-in could be a bottleneck itself, we designed the system to allow multiple kiosks and also roaming staff with handheld versions. The software was the same in both. My flows had to account for someone starting at a kiosk and maybe finishing with staff help, etc.

Results & Learnings

Billfold transformed the event experience for both guests and organizers, and the design played a huge part in its success.

Outcome & Impact

Impact on Events: Our system became a selling point for venues – for instance, one large New York venue reported a 40% increase in concession sales after implementing Billfold, attributed to shorter lines and more spending per customer. Guests spent less time waiting and more time enjoying the event (and maybe buying that extra drink since it was so convenient).

Many attendees and staff gave feedback along the lines of “I barely had to think about paying, it just happened.” This was exactly what we aimed for – a frictionless experience.

We scaled to handle events with tens of thousands of attendees. At one music festival, over 95% of all transactions went through Billfold — virtually eliminating cash on-site.. Organizers loved the real-time dashboard where they could see sales spike when a headliner went on stage, etc., giving them insights they never had before in cash-based events.

Designing Billfold taught me how vital context is. I kept asking, “Where will this screen be used? Under what conditions?” That mindset led to smarter, more resilient design decisions.

I learned to adapt my research approach when I couldn’t be on-site — staying curious and resourceful despite the distance.

I also got a crash course in designing hardware and software together — aligning screen logic with RFID behavior, and understanding how even a 1-second delay could break trust. It pushed me to think more holistically about interaction across systems, not just interfaces.

What I Learned

Crucially, I saw first-hand how UX can drive business metrics. By focusing on speed and simplicity, we directly drove more revenue for our clients (the venues). That’s the kind of impact that sticks with me, because it connects the dots from design to dollars — design wasn’t just “nice UI” here, it was literally enabling tens of thousands of extra transactions, which is huge in the events industry.

Lastly, working as the lone designer in a startup, I grew in resilience and autonomy. I had to trust my instincts, make decisions quickly, and justify them to a cross-functional team.