Steve Duby and Christina Pietro at the 2010 Taste of Alpharetta

Last week was the 20^th Annual Taste of Alpharetta outdoor street festival.   The Taste of Alpharetta is the largest “Taste of” festival in the South with over 60 restaurants sampling delicious appetizers, entrees and desserts, plus a chef’s competition, cooking demonstrations and a Culinary Arts & Music Stage.

While admission, parking and shuttles are free, participating restaurants charge $1-3 per food sample.  For the 3rd consecutive year, Vantage set up a wireless payment card system for the City of Alpharetta to quickly handle food ticketing for 57,400 foodies and festival-goers in five hours. 

We set up two VeriFone Vx510IP terminals connected to a Verizon wireless router to accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express at five separate entry points.   This is a good mobile payment solution option for merchants who have access to power and need multiple payment devices to handle high volume of customers quickly.  It also holds down costs.  IP terminals costs less than comparable wireless credit card terminals.  And sharing a wireless access point is more cost effective than paying for individual wireless activation and network services per terminal.  This high volume mobile payment solution is quick and easy to setup, with little or no IT support. 

The Vantage Card Services team congratulates the City of Alpharetta on a wonderful evening and another very successful event and we look forward to participating again next year!