FRANCE: This year’s Bordeaux Wine Festival has entrusted event technology specialist, Intellitix, to deliver innovative Tasting Passes embedded with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips at the prestigious wine festival, set to take place from June 23 – 26.
Organised every two years, Bordeaux Wine Festival is Europe’s largest wine tourism event. Spanning 2km along a wine ‘road’ between the city’s 18th century buildings and the river banks of the Garonne, over 80 appellations from the Bordeaux and Aquitaine regions will be on offer at pavilions throughout the route. The event is expected to welcome 700,000 visitors from around the world, sampling from over 1,000 different wine producers and merchants.
Le Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB) and Bordeaux Grands Événements (BGE) have called upon Intellitix’s expertise to enhance event operations by digitising the wine tasting experience across the festival. In replacement of paper vouchers used in previous editions, Bordeaux Wine Festival guests will be able to conveniently sample from wineries and receive special access privileges with a quick scan of their pre-loaded ‘Tasting Pass’ RFID cards. The elimination of paper vouchers also falls in line with the event’s focus on eco-responsibility.
Using Intellitix’s event technology platform, the organisers of Bordeaux Wine Festival will gain a wealth of customer data in realtime to swiftly manage post-event reconciliation with wine exhibitors and develop actionable insight leveraging guest preferences and Tasting Pass usage to improve future event experiences. The Smart Data capture allows organisers to determine the most popular exhibitors, wine samples, and workshops, while tracking on-site activity and patron flow through the various pavilions and special access areas for future event content and site planning. Moreover, registered guests receive a digital record of every wine tasting they sampled. Organisers and vendors have the opportunity to reach out to registered guests through custom-tailored post-event communications to further drive wine purchases and build customer loyalty.
Serge Grimaux, Head Pilot of Intellitix, said: “We are incredibly honoured to be working with CIVB, BGE, the greatest Grand cru and reputable wine producers of the world, integrating our innovative technology into Europe’s largest wine festival. Our event solutions will enable the organisers of Bordeaux Wine Festival to maximise the event’s full potential and customer reach by streamlining event operations and delivering valuable audience data and insight.
“This is only the beginning of a very rich journey. Never before will wine producers and wine lovers have such a fruitful relationship. Millions of stories and legends exist because of great Bordeaux wines. Being among those who will take this prestigious event to the next level is one of the highlights of our accomplishments to date. In vino veritas!”
Richard Coconnier, General Delegate of Bordeaux Grands Événements, said: “Having decided to abandon a paper pass, the Bordeaux Wine Festival decided to rely on an innovative technological solution already used for several over major international events. This makes it possible to monitor access and payment with an RFID card. This digital pass, a major innovation in 2016, is part of a major effort to limit the size and number of printed documents both during and after the festival. Communication is now being done increasingly via the website (where the full programme can be downloaded) and social networks rather than in print versions.”
Celebrating its 10th anniversary, Bordeaux Wine Festival offers visitors a rich cultural experience with street art and artistic dance performances, orchestra concerts, competitive barrel rolling, local chef competitions, and guided tours of the legendary three-master sailing ship, The Belem. Bordeaux Wine Festival will also include a 20-minute evening light show projecting onto the facade of the Palais de la Bourse, transporting audiences into the universe of vines and wine, with a spectacular fireworks display to round off their Bordeaux experience every night.
