Festival asset tracking · Custody hardware
The asset office for your event, in a flight case — and it works when the site internet doesn't. Open the lid, power on, scanning. Every issue and return becomes a row in a ledger you own.
£419–£490 — the chargeback for one lost hire radio. support@kitholder.co.uk
The custody argument
Event kit is increasingly vendor-owned — cashless units, entry scanners, hired radios. When the vendor's invoice lands after the build, they charge full RRP for every loss. What's your counter-record? A spreadsheet nobody updated at 1 AM on show day.
// Without KitHolder
Whatever their warehouse says came back short, you pay — at full RRP, with no timestamp, no name and no argument to stand on.
// With KitHolder
Every movement is a timestamped row — the person, the time, the device that recorded it. A disputed radio becomes a named person and a time, not a line on an invoice.
Disputable. Recoverable. Accountable. — one lost radio is the invoice line you'd swallow, vs the ledger row that answers it.
What it is
Onto the desk, power on, scanning. Everything it needs travels with it — including its own network, clock and certificate authority.
[01]
The asset office desk — and the server. Check-out, check-in, live board.
[02]
Wired and Wi-Fi. We bring it — a polite guest on site, dependent on nothing.
[03]
Wired in, self-serve. Scan the radio on the desk; the screen confirms the return.
[04]
Scanners for the window queue and the compound walk.
[05]
Every item numbered, labelled and on the register in minutes.
[06]
To disk and a USB stick in the lid. Venue internet is treated as unreliable, because it is.
Why it wins
Today the vendor's count is the only record, so a chargeback is undisputable. With KitHolder the organiser holds a timestamped custody chain — append-only, with the person, the time and the device that recorded each movement. At the end of the event the case produces a signed export: who had each item, when, and what came back.
Every scan, on every screen, the second it happens. The signed export is yours to put in front of any hire company.
Fully offline by design. Own network, own clock, own certificate authority. Crew phones join the case's own Wi-Fi and run the KitHolder app — no venue internet, no IT ticket, no dependency on the one bar of signal behind the production office.
Backups to disk and a USB stick in the lid. If the site goes dark, the ledger doesn't.
Built by festival operators, not a software vendor. The desk needs no training: issuing is an admin act — scan the crew badge, scan the radios, done. Returns need no badge and no name check, so the return queue moves fast.
The whole desk reads in colour:
Kit returned that was never issued. A radio still out with someone else. A label that won't read. A scanner set to the wrong mode. Each has a defined outcome and is recorded rather than dropped — anomalies are kept for the office, because they may matter later.
Nothing falls through a gap at 2 AM. Weird cases become ledger rows, not shrugged shoulders.
The register, people and teams carry forward. The case comes out of storage pre-loaded — same kit list, same crew, same vendors — with a ten-year certificate that never needs renewing.
Year two starts where year one left off. Storage to scanning in minutes.
The workflow
Two scans at the desk: one says who, one says what. Everything else is an automated timestamp.
The QR on their phone identifies them. The system knows exactly who is standing at the desk. ID · J. Okafor
Scan the radio, scanner or key fob — or several — and each one is associated to that person. ASSOCIATE DEVICE(S)…
Issued, timestamped, and live on every screen in the room the second it happens. OUT — issued to J. Okafor
Coming back, crew hold the radio under the desk scanner. The screen shows who had it, since when — and a green tick. No badge, no name check, no queue at one person's elbow. Your admin does something more useful.
The case produces the custody record: who had each item, when, and what came back. Yours. Defensible.
Messy reality, defined outcomes
// returned, never issued
Recorded as an unmatched return and kept for the office. It may be last season's, the vendor's, or someone's personal kit — now it's on the record either way.
// still out with someone else
The desk shows both custody rows and reconciles against the badge scan. Amber — recorded with the caveat, never silently overwritten.
// label won't read
The scan is logged as unreadable, the item is flagged, and the label printer re-issues a number. The ledger never skips a beat.
// scanner in the wrong mode
The desk rejects the mode change and shows red: stop and find a person. Bad data is stopped before it becomes someone's problem in November.
// green means done
No training deck, no manual. Green means recorded — put it in the case and walk away.
// anomalies kept for the office
Every amber and red is retained in the ledger, because a messy row in August can be the answer to a disputed invoice in October.
How it lands
No installation project, no IT ticket, no specialist operator.
[01]
Flight case onto the desk, power on, scanning — on our own network, with or without site internet.
[02]
Your admin decides who takes what out; returns run themselves at the desk scanner.
[03]
Anyone on the admin network can look up who has what, from their own machine — live, the second it's scanned.
[04]
Year 2 starts pre-loaded: your kit register, vendors and crew, ready on day one.
The maths
Festivals lose 3–6% of fleet kit per event, charged back at full RRP. Put your own numbers in.
Estimated loss bill: £2,514 per event.
The Station costs £795. One event pays for it three times over.
Loss figures from published UK hire terms and dealer RRP, August 2026. Estimate only.
Pricing
Per event, self-setup, everything included. No seats, no annual licence. Launch pricing for the 2027 season.
Up to 100 assets
£395 / event
Software, desk scanner and label roll, posted ahead. Runs on your own laptop and phones. Set up yourself in under an hour.
Full flight case
100–500 assets
£795 / event
The full flight case: workstation, own network, desk scanner, handhelds, labels. Drop it on the desk, power on, scanning.
500+ assets / multi-department
from £1,750 / event
Station plus additional handhelds and setup support, per department or site-wide. Quoted to the operation.
Running several events a year? Season terms for agencies and multi-event operators — your kit register, vendors and crew carried from event to event, ready on day one.
support@kitholder.co.uk →Anchor maths: festivals lose 3–6% of fleet kit per event, charged back at full RRP. Every tier prices below the typical loss bill it prevents. And the first event is free — see below.
The offer
We're launching for the 2027 season. First event free, in exchange for a case study. If our end-of-show loss report doesn't justify the price of the system, you'll have the exact data you need to prove it.
or email support@kitholder.co.uk