Read moreInitial Riverbend acts announced
WRISTBANDS ON SALE• The corporate sales program is under way, with wristbands available at $28 each in numbers of 100 or more.• General admission wristbands will cost $35 and go on sale May 1 at area Kangaroo stores. General admission wristbands will be available for $28 only on Dec. 14 at Hamilton Place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Patrons who want collectible pins will be able to get them online at riverbendfestival.com or at the Friends of the Festival office on Hamm Road after May 1.
Riverbend is going high tech and will replace the admission pins that have been used since 1983 with wristbands that include a bar code, according to executive director Chip Baker.
The bar codes will be scanned upon entry and exit and will eventually provide demographic information to organizers. In the next couple of years, as costs decline, the wristbands will be outfitted with radio frequency identification chips, similar to those used by festivals such as the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn.
The chips allow festival organizers to monitor crowd flow through check points, disable lost or stolen wristbands and to even allow holders to make purchases using just the wristband. The wristbands will have a watermark as well, making them harder to counterfeit, according to spokeswoman Amy Morrow.