The problem
A payment page has one job, and it has to do it at the worst possible moment: when the biggest film of the year goes on sale, or the presenter reads out the donation number. If the gateway slows down, the sale is lost, and in a booking flow the seat may be lost with it.
Selling in more than one country makes it harder. Each market brings its own card schemes, local payment methods, currencies and rules, and customers expect to pay with the bank card, the wallet or the loyalty points they already use. One gateway rarely covers all of that, and adding a second one shouldn’t mean rebuilding the checkout.
VOX Cinemas: many gateways, one checkout
For VOX Cinemas, selling tickets and food across eight countries, we built an open payment module into the booking platform, so each region can use the providers and methods its customers expect.
- Automatic fail-over between Checkout.com and CyberSource, so a gateway problem during a launch doesn’t stop sales.
- Local payment methods: Mada, KNET, OmanNet, Apple Pay and digital wallets.
- Regional roll-outs on a live platform: Checkout.com was rolled out to Oman, Kuwait and the UAE in 2024 without a rebuild.
- Split payment: a single purchase can be paid across more than one provider, with eligibility rules checked against Vista in real time.
- Loyalty as currency: points from SHARE and from partner schemes spent alongside cash at checkout. See Loyalty, memberships and subscriptions.
- 30+ bank partner offers validated in real time, so only eligible cardholders get the discount. See Gift cards, vouchers and partner offers.
- Online refunds and an eWallet, added in 2019 and 2020.
The result: +65% online transaction revenue, with 99.9% uptime through major launches.
Cineworld: cards, gift cards and subscriptions together
For Cineworld we brought BT Buynet card processing, SVS gift cards and ATOS subscription payments into one checkout, joined up with Vista ticketing and the Microsoft Dynamics back office. Customers could split a payment between a gift card and a bank card, and Unlimited members’ monthly billing ran through the same platform. Over the years it handled millions of card and subscription transactions.
Comic Relief: never drop a donation
During the Red Nose Day and Sport Relief telethons, the banks were the bottleneck: their APIs took between 0.5 and 10 seconds per transaction. We built a queue that captured every donation instantly and passed it to the banks at a rate they could take, sustaining 150 concurrent banking connections and 1,500 concurrent donation transactions. See Peak traffic and launch days.
How it works
- Card data stays off your systems. Tokenisation and secure redirection send card details straight to the payment provider, which keeps your PCI DSS scope as small as possible.
- Providers sit behind one interface. The checkout talks to a payment module, not to a gateway, so adding a provider, a country or a wallet is configuration and a new adapter, not a new checkout.
- Rules run in real time. Bank offers, member discounts, vouchers and points are checked and applied before the customer pays, against the ticketing system’s own rules.
- Built for the rush. Payment is the slowest step in a booking, so it is load-tested with the rest of the platform, beyond the forecast peak.
We have integrated Checkout.com, CyberSource, Adyen, WorldPay, BT Buynet, Mada, KNET, OmanNet, Apple Pay and Google Pay, as well as SVS gift cards and ATOS subscription billing.
Beyond cinema
The same approach works for any business that takes payment at a fixed moment: live events and festivals, theatres and stadiums, charities running appeals, and retailers and marketplaces trading across borders.
Related
- Services: Software Development, Vista Cinema Integrators, DevOps & Cloud Engineering
- Solutions: Gift cards, vouchers and partner offers, Loyalty, memberships and subscriptions, Peak traffic and launch days
- Case studies: VOX Cinemas, Cineworld, Comic Relief
- Specialist sites: Can Factory Cinema, Can Factory Live Events
Frequently asked questions
Can we add a new payment provider without rebuilding the checkout?
Yes. That is what the payment module is for. At VOX, new providers and local methods have been added country by country on the live platform.
What happens if a payment gateway goes down during a launch?
With more than one provider in place, payments can fail over automatically to the other. At VOX, payments switch between Checkout.com and CyberSource.
Does this reduce our PCI DSS scope?
It is designed to. Card details go directly to the payment provider through tokenisation and secure redirection, so they never touch your own servers. Your provider and QSA will confirm the exact scope.
