Challenge

The first edition of UNTOLD was held in Cluj-Napoca, where organizers seized an opportunity to celebrate the local culture and promote Romania as an international destination with an electronic dance music (EDM) lineup and ambitious, tech-driven set pieces. After producing eight increasingly large editions in Cluj-Napoca—and several spin-off events elsewhere in Romania—the company decided to take the brand beyond its country’s borders and organize an UNTOLD festival in Dubai.

Several factors made the Middle Eastern metropolis an ideal place for UNTOLD to broaden its reach—including its cultural diversity, advanced infrastructure, and thriving tourism sector. But bringing the festival to a new market also presented several challenges: in addition to coordinating a complex series of musical experiences in a new city, UNTOLD had to find a new payment partner that could help it launch global ticket sales on a tight timeline. The festival was set for February 2024, and tickets would need to go on sale several months prior.

UNTOLD needed to onboard with a payment provider licensed to process transactions in compliance with UAE regulations. Typically that would require traveling to the UAE to onboard in person, so UNTOLD was looking for a more efficient option. As a destination event that would attract festivalgoers from around the world, UNTOLD also needed the ability to process payments in multiple currencies and receive payouts from those transactions quickly in order to pay contractors and vendors in a timely manner.

Scalability was another key factor, as ticket sales tend to spike soon after they’re launched. UNTOLD needed to be sure its payment partner could handle a high transaction volume over a short period of time without crashing. At the same time, those periods of intense demand were also ripe for potential fraudulent transactions, which meant that UNTOLD needed a payment partner with robust fraud prevention.

Finally, UNTOLD needed its payment partner to offer a seamless frontend experience for ticket buyers. As a customer’s first interaction with UNTOLD Dubai, the ticket-buying experience had to instill confidence in prospective festivalgoers that the organization could manage a complex, ambitious event.

Solution

In November 2023, UNTOLD partnered with Stripe to build the UNTOLD Dubai ticketing platform. Stripe’s online onboarding process helped UNTOLD with time and travel expenses. Stripe’s thorough documentation and prebuilt integrations allowed the company to begin integrating Stripe Payments immediately.

With the built-in compliance tools, local regulatory support, and automated tax handling provided by Stripe Payments, compliance with UAE payment regulations was easy. Support for 135 currencies meant UNTOLD could easily accept payments from the festival’s international fan base. Stripe’s automated rolling payouts kept cash flowing into UNTOLD’s account.

Stripe’s reliable infrastructure could handle the volume of transactions that UNTOLD expected to receive without any downtime. And without any additional coding, UNTOLD was able to turn on Stripe Radar, an integrated fraud prevention solution. Radar gave UNTOLD access to sophisticated AI tools that support real-time fraud identification and mitigation, even during times of high transaction volume.

To ensure a user-friendly customer experience, UNTOLD used Stripe’s Payment Element, an embeddable UI component that streamlines the integration of multiple payment methods. This allowed the company to easily activate bank transfers, digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, and card payments without extensive coding or development time. The Payment Element also helps optimize the checkout flow by dynamically prioritizing and displaying the most relevant payment methods based on the ticket buyer’s location, device, and other factors, which in turn helps reduce friction and increase conversion.

Results

Quick launch kept UNTOLD Dubai on schedule

UNTOLD closed the deal with Stripe near the end of November and launched ticket sales in less than a week, which fit perfectly into the timeline for the February festival.

Multiple-currency transactions settled in two weeks

Festivalgoers paid for their tickets in several different currencies, including euros, UAE dirhams, and Romanian lei. With Stripe, UNTOLD received funds from those transactions in two weeks.

Stripe’s reliable infrastructure facilitates 10,000 tickets sold in the first week

UNTOLD Dubai sold more than 10,000 tickets in the first week of sales without any downtime or other technical difficulties that would hinder conversion or impact the experience for ticket buyers.

Radar reduces fraud while preserving the customer experience

UNTOLD was confident in Radar’s performance, but the effectiveness of the fraud prevention tool exceeded expectations. “The number of fraud attempts and disputes turned out to be even lower than we expected. The machine learning algorithms precisely identified and blocked high-risk transactions while allowing genuine customers to purchase without any hiccups,” said Razvan Botezatu, chief growth officer at UNTOLD.

Easy activation of payment methods saves time and money

Botezatu credits the Payment Element with making UNTOLD Dubai more efficient. “The ability to easily activate payment methods without the hassle of complicated in-house integrations saved a lot of time and development.”

That allowed UNTOLD to put more resources into the festival’s most ambitious features, such as trance DJ Armin van Buuren’s set, which was performed on the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, while 3D projections transformed the iconic tower into a giant digital canvas.