Tuesday kicked off the Fraze’s summer season with a performance by R&B multi-platinum artist Maxwell, but event goers were alerted hours before the concert that the show was going to be cash only. The issue was fixed ahead of Thursday night’s show scheduled to feature George Benson and Kenny G.
The system glitch affected purchases at merchandise locations and concession stands, but not ticket booths the Fraze uses a different processing system for those purchases.
“We’re going to a new technology for credit card processing,” city manager Mark Schwieterman said. “We got word late last week that the software interface was not functioning properly between vendors and were unable to get it fixed before the show.”
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Kettering upgraded its card processing hardware and software earlier this year with contactless payment technology. Schwieterman said the hardware is “ready to go” but the vendor was unable to process payments through to the city’s bank.
Schwieterman said the Fraze is “mostly a cash operation” and that only about 20 percent of people at Fraze events use credit or debit cards for concession or merchandise purchases. Schwieterman said Kettering city staff members solicited feedback from patrons about Tuesday’s cash-only option.
“We got a lot of positive feedback because our sponsor, Mid USA Credit Union, waived the customer fee for the use of the ATM, so that was all good,” he said.
Though they’ve not received any negative feedback, Schwieterman said they “certainly want credit cards at the Fraze.”
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