Summer, don’t you love it? Time to hang up the blazer that dominates the traditional dress code of my role as President of Bath Rugby. It’s Festival season. A chance to let what remaining hair I possess down. The Hall family favourite is WOMAD (World of Music Arts and Dance) staged every July at the glorious Charlton Park Estate near Malmesbury, a Wiltshire town famous for the efforts of a flying monk.

Wheels and not wings is the Hall mode of transport. Cars, as much portable storage as our guilt inducing diesel guzzlers can carry. The family leave little behind as pre festival enthusiasm builds. Key features on the lengthy check list include sleeping bags, toilet roll, torches and, taking pride of place, cash. Rolls of the stuff. Like we’ve sneaked out of the bank in `Money Heist’.

Enough to fill the pockets of merchants who set up their shop every year, offering the most exotic in the way of catering and merchandising from around the world. Arrive Thursday, pitch the tent and we are off. Summertime madness, yes, like millions of others we love it.

Friday morning. A vague air of damp within the tent and a mysteriously depleted roll of cash. Ah yes, the food, the drink, the mate you hadn’t seen for 20 years who needed a loan, My daughters, relentlessly open palmed as we wander around…maybe the odd note slipped out of the pocket with the last, late night round.

We festival fans have more money but fewer smiles this summer. WOMAD, like pretty much all domestic festivals and major events, was cancelled. Another victim of Covid 19. But have no doubt, the events industry will bounce back next year. For all the negative aspects of the crisis it has forced some lifestyle changes and, perhaps most significantly, “turbo charged” the move towards a more cashless society.

Like WOMAD, a number of modern event ventures were already beginning to recognise and deploy mobile cashless payments prior to the pandemic. Digital wallets technology is growing, presenting, as they do, a superior consumer experience; shorter queues, budget setting, entry and payment systems, improved hygiene and digital vouchers to name just a few customer benefits. Not to mention valuable customer insights for vendors which can only improve their own operating efficiencies.

On the global scale we continue to see the mobile payments market expanding. It is expected to reach a staggering USD 4,574 billion by 2023. Its growth has been given extra momentum with the acceleration of cashless consumer proof points brought on by necessity rather than choice courtesy of the pandemic lock down and hygiene restrictions.

Are we – with Peer to Peer payment Apps like Venmo and PayPal now commonplace – eroding the need for cash? High Street Banks are closing, cash machine usage is down 6-10% year on year with cash withdrawals down a staggering 60% during this bleak period of isolation. Are we living through the death of all those famous faces printed on pieces of highly losable paper?

Let’s hold on a minute. Not jump the gun. For all the trends, cash will be with us for some time to come. There remain, quite literally, millions of citizens, often the vulnerable, the low or no income who tragically are being left behind. There are many elderly who rely on cash; those without access to bank accounts, who have difficulties with phone or/and computer usage. Yes, we don’t all have mobile access. And there continue to be those traditionalists who prefer the old fashioned “folding stuff” through habit or peace of mind. It’s not a case of one size fits all and it is imperative that we continue to cater for those who use cash through either choice or necessity.

Everyone is willing an end to the suffering wreaked upon the world by the pandemic. A return to how life was, when 2 metres was the height of a rugby player. But will it really be the same? Will it ever be the same? Consolations are hard to come by but here’s something to which you can clutch. There is ever more proof through the lock down of new and original thinking; on how we go about our lives that have been turned upsides down, in the areas of workplace and – especially – personal finance.

The loss of live events has left a hole in many of our lives. We should be doubly determined to celebrate the festival market bouncing back to its feet in 2021, all the more solid for the embrace of new technology that can only build the Customer Experience. I, for one, look forward to waking up on a summer’s morning, a smell of damp, back and head aching, but safe in the knowledge that the roll of cash has not shrunken in ways that cannot be explained.

A quick check of the phone to realise exactly what and where my festival family spent our funds the previous evening. A straightforward ability to top up my Festival digital account. Perfect. A stretch, a breakfast and a willingness to do it all over again. Let’s all look forward to 2021 with what our new world will have to offer.