Charging lockers suit venues where guests have something to put down and somewhere to be for a few hours: a waterpark, a festival campsite, a gym. Power bank hire suits venues where guests keep moving and want the phone in their hand while it charges: a city-centre bar, a transport hub, an arena concourse. A charging locker on revenue share pays the venue a share of every hire; a power bank station is usually a hosted amenity whose income goes to the network. This guide compares the two on security, dwell time, revenue, staffing, loss, weather and fit.
The two guest experiences
With a charging locker the guest walks up to a touchscreen kiosk, picks a size, taps a card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, and the door opens. Inside are USB-C and USB-A ports and a Qi wireless pad, so the phone charges on whatever it uses, next to the bag, behind a reinforced steel door with an electromagnetic latch. The guest opens the door with the same card whenever they want the phone, and the bag stays put for as long as the hire runs. LockVault, our smart-locker service, offers charging variants across four locker sizes (mini, small, medium and large), hired in under 30 seconds or pre-booked by phone with a QR code on arrival.
With power bank hire the guest scans a code on a station, pays through an app or a card reader, and takes a battery pack away in a pocket. The phone stays in use while it charges. The pack has to come back to a station before the hire ends, and the price usually runs by the hour up to a daily cap, with a deposit or a card hold behind it. Capacity is the quiet constraint: the packs EE swapped at Glastonbury in 2017 held 2,200mAh, a partial charge rather than a full one, and a daily swap was part of the offer.
The search phrase for this comparison is usually “charging lockers vs power bank rental”. In UK venue copy the second half is power bank hire, and the two are not direct rivals: one secures belongings and charges a phone in one place, the other charges a phone on the move.
The two commercial models for the venue
A charging locker on revenue share costs the venue nothing. LockVault funds, installs, powers, connects, runs, maintains and insures the lockers; the venue provides floor space or a pitch and the footfall. The venue receives a share of gross rental revenue, with the split agreed after a site survey, an itemised statement on the 1st of each month and the payout by the 15th. Charging lockers are priced by the hour, the four-hour block and the day, above a standard locker and below the XL charging locker, with the final guest prices agreed with the venue and published on LockVault’s own site. How the split is set and paid is explained in how locker revenue share works.
Power bank hire is priced to the guest by the network. Tech Advisor’s 2020 review of ChargedUp described £1 an hour for up to three hours, then free for the rest of that day, £3 a day for longer hires and a £30 cap after which the pack is the guest’s to keep. Brick, a Stockholm-based network, wrote in August 2026 that most European networks charge €1 to €3 for the first hour with daily caps of €6 to €10, and treat a pack not returned within five days as a purchase, capped at €50. What the host venue receives varies: some networks pay a commission on hires, others place the station as a free amenity and keep the income, so ask before you sign. A third model is event hire, where the organiser pays: ChargeSpotUK’s listing on Hirespace prices an eight-locker charging station at £325 a session plus £250 delivery and pickup.
| Charging lockers on revenue share | Power bank hire | |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays for the kit | The operator | The network, or the organiser on event hire |
| Who the guest pays | The operator, at the kiosk or by pre-booking | The network, in its app or at the station |
| What the venue earns | A share of gross rental revenue, agreed after a site survey | A commission under some agreements, nothing under others |
| Guest price | By the hour, the four-hour block or the day, agreed with the venue | Around £1 to £3 for the first hour with a daily cap, varying by network |
| What is secured | Phone and belongings behind a steel door | Nothing; the pack travels with the guest |
Security, dwell time and staffing
Security is the clearest split. A charging locker holds the phone and the bag, and the guest leaves both behind on purpose. LockVault doors are sealed and rated for splash zones, with an electromagnetic latch and a reinforced steel door, and the hire is tied to the card or QR code that opened it. A power bank secures nothing; it adds one more item to carry and to lose.
Dwell time pulls both ways. A guest with no bag to carry and a phone on charge tends to stay for the next session or act rather than leave to find a charger. A guest with a power bank stays connected while walking around, which matters where the phone is the ticket, the wallet or the map.
Staffing favours the locker when the operator runs it. LockVault monitors every door 24/7 from a remote operations dashboard, commits to a 99.9% uptime service level and handles guest support, refunds, maintenance and software updates, so the venue’s front-of-house team does not hold keys or a float. Power bank stations are unattended too, but a guest who cannot return a pack or disputes a charge asks the nearest member of your staff first, so agree the escalation route with the network.
Loss, damage and weather
With a locker, loss and damage sit with the operator: LockVault handles insurance and maintenance, and a guest cannot walk off with the asset. With power bank hire, the asset leaves the venue in a pocket; networks manage that by charging the guest for non-return, with Brick citing a cap of €50, and by holding a card deposit. Breakage and unreturned packs are the network’s cost, but the complaints land at your venue.
Weather settles the choice at outdoor and wet sites. A LockVault container or bank runs from a solar roof and an on-board battery with a Starlink connection, needs no mains or Wi-Fi, and its doors are rated for splash zones. A power bank is a lithium battery in a wet pocket, and stations are usually sited indoors with a mains feed.
Where each fits
Festivals. Multi-day camping events have room for both: charging lockers at the campsite boundary and arena entrance for bags and overnight charging, and power bank hire or swaps for the walk between stages. Costs, siting and how the organiser earns are covered in festival locker hire costs and set-up.
Waterparks and aquatic centres. Lockers win outright. The phone cannot go on the slide, the guest is in the water for hours, and a splash-rated charging locker returns a full battery at the end of the session. See lockers and timed entry for waterparks.
Arenas and stadiums. Fans dwell for a few hours and bag policies push belongings outside the bowl, so fitted locker banks of 24 to 240 lockers near the gates do the storage job, and power bank hire fits the concourse.
Gyms and leisure centres. Members already expect a locker. A charging variant turns a 60-minute session into a full battery, and power bank hire has little to add where every member has a locker card or key.
What a no-upfront-cost locker deal should include, from power to insurance to data, is in what a lockers-as-a-service deal covers.
What VenueOra does here
VenueOra deploys charging lockers as part of smart lockers on revenue share through LockVault, with USB-C, USB-A and Qi charging across four sizes and no upfront or operating cost to the venue. For wet sites, waterpark ticketing and lockers shows how the splash-rated lockers sit alongside timed entry. Revenue figures are estimates from footfall and typical conversion. The final split and forecast come from a site survey.
Sources
- Mobile News, 5 July 2017: EE swapped 40,000 power banks at Glastonbury for the 2,200mAh capacity and the daily swap.
- Tech Advisor, 10 January 2020: ChargedUp on-demand portable power for the £1 an hour, £3 a day and £30 cap figures.
- Brick, 5 August 2026: article on power bank hire costs for European hourly rates, daily caps and the €50 non-return cap.
- Hirespace: ChargeSpotUK for the £325 per session and £250 delivery figures.