About Chef’s Kiss Food Festival
Chef’s Kiss Food Festival is a food, culture and experience-driven festival held at Ayia Napa Marina in Cyprus. Built on the belief that food has a unique ability to bring people together, the festival was created to be more than a traditional food event.
Its mission is to create an environment where people can gather with friends and family, discover new flavours, learn from chefs, take part in workshops and create meaningful memories together.
Alongside a curated selection of restaurants, chefs and food concepts, Chef’s Kiss offers live cooking demonstrations, workshops, tasting experiences, music and interactive activities that encourage people to engage with food in a more meaningful way.
Today, the festival attracts thousands of attendees from across Europe, bringing together food lovers, families, tourists, hospitality professionals, and brands.
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The challenge
For the Chef’s Kiss team, one of the biggest operational priorities is making payments simple and seamless for attendees across channels.
At the festival, all visitors purchase coupons from dedicated ticket booths before using them across the event for food, drinks, workshops and experiences. This makes the ticket booths one of the most important touchpoints in the customer journey.
Any delay, friction or technical issue at this stage could quickly affect the flow of the event and the overall guest experience. As the festival grew in size and popularity, payment reliability became even more important, placing greater demand on its onsite payment setup and overall event infrastructure.
For the 2026 festival, Chef’s Kiss also introduced online reservations for workshops and private food experiences through its website. The team needed a solution that would allow guests to reserve and pay for their places in advance, while keeping the process simple, reliable and easy to manage.
The goal was clear: attendees should be able to focus on enjoying the festival, not worrying about payments, bookings, or long waiting times.
The solution
Chef’s Kiss chose payabl. for both onsite and online payments.
The team used payabl. in-store systems at dedicated festival ticket booths, enabling visitors to purchase coupons quickly and easily when they arrived at the event.
For online reservations, Chef’s Kiss used payabl. payment links to support bookings for workshops and private food experiences through its website. This gave guests a simple way to reserve and pay in advance, while helping the festival team manage bookings more efficiently.
Having both onsite and online payment solutions supported by the same trusted partner made the entire process easier to coordinate.
What stood out to the Chef’s Kiss team was not only the technology, but the support behind it. The payabl. team was approachable, responsive and genuinely invested in helping the organisers find the right setup for the festival.
Implementation
The implementation process was smooth from start to finish.
The payabl. team guided Chef’s Kiss through setup, answered questions quickly and helped ensure everything was ready before the festival opened.
When the event went live, everything worked exactly as planned. The POS systems at the ticket booths operated reliably throughout the festival, while the online booking and payment process for workshops and food experiences also ran smoothly.
For the Chef’s Kiss organisers, this reliability made a real difference. During a live festival, there are always multiple operational priorities competing for attention. Knowing that the payment infrastructure was working as expected allowed the team to focus on delivering the best possible experience for guests.
“payabl. gave us real peace of mind during the festival. Their POS systems worked flawlessly at our ticket booths, while payment links made it simple for guests to book workshops and food experiences online. Knowing the payment side was in safe hands allowed us to focus on creating the best possible experience for our visitors.”
Antonis Kitazos, Co-founder, Chef’s Kiss Food Festival
The results
86% year-on-year transaction volume growth
Chef’s Kiss Festival achieved strong year-on-year growth, with revenue increasing by 93% and transaction volumes rising by 86%.
As the festival scaled, payabl. helped the team manage higher payment volumes across both onsite and online touchpoints. Attendees were able to purchase coupons quickly and efficiently at the ticket booths, helping maintain a smooth flow throughout the festival. Guests could also reserve workshops and experiences online in advance, making planning easier for both visitors and the internal team.
The systems performed reliably across the event, reducing payment-related concerns and allowing the organisers to focus on operations, programming and guest experience.
For an event built around food, culture and shared experiences, that reliability was essential. Payments worked quietly in the background, helping the festival run smoothly without distracting from the attendee experience.
“What we value most about payabl. is the partnership. The team was responsive, supportive, and genuinely invested in helping us find the right solution for Chef’s Kiss. From setup to go-live, everything worked smoothly, and that reliability makes a huge difference in a live festival environment.”
Antonis Kitazos, Co-founder, Chef’s Kiss Food Festival
Why choose payabl. for festival payments?
payabl. has become a trusted partner for Chef’s Kiss Food Festival. From onsite transactions at ticket booths to online bookings for workshops and private food experiences, payabl. provides solutions that help the festival operate more smoothly.
Beyond the technology itself, the Chef’s Kiss team values the partnership. Working with a responsive and supportive team gives them confidence as they continue to grow the festival year after year.
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