Canada Life Centre goes cashless for food and beverage sales at arena – Winnipeg

If you’re planning on attending a concert or seeing a live Jets, Moose or Sea Bears game at Winnipeg’s downtown arena, you won’t need to bring cash.

Canada Life Centre announced Tuesday that it has gone cashless in an effort to increase the speed of service for food and beverages.

True North Sports and Entertainment’s Kevin Donnelly told 680 CJOB the change, which puts the Canada Life Centre in line with many other arenas across North America, was a long time coming, as the vast majority of arena patrons were using cards anyway.

Donnelly said around 90 per cent of customers were already eschewing cash for debit or credit cards.

Those who don’t have access to a card option — or just forgot about the shift — can still make purchases at the arena, he said.

“You can buy a Visa gift card at our customer service, so if you show up with cash, we’ll sell you a Visa gift card, you can use it at our outlets … and then you can use it elsewhere when you’re done our event.

“The industry is going cashless,” he said.

“Many, many more arenas and stadiums around the planet are already cashless, so we’re actually behind the trend a little bit.”

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True North hopes to speed up arena lines, get fans educated on new bag policy

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