Locker revenue share is a commercial model in which a locker operator funds, installs and runs smart lockers at your venue at no cost to you, and pays you an agreed percentage of the gross rental revenue each month. You provide the pitch and the footfall; the operator carries the capital, the running costs and the risk. This guide sets out how the model works end to end, with a worked example and the contract questions worth putting to any provider.
The operator funds and runs the lockers; the venue provides the space
Under revenue share the operator pays for everything that makes a locker work. With LockVault, our smart-locker service, that means LockVault funds the hardware, installs it, powers it, connects it, runs it day to day and maintains it. The lockers are self-powered from a solar roof and an on-board battery, and connected over Starlink, so most sites need no mains power and no Wi-Fi from the venue. There is no upfront cost and no operating cost to the venue.
The venue’s side of the deal is short. You provide a pitch or floor space and the footfall that passes it. You agree the guest prices and the siting. You do not buy hardware, roster staff for the lockers, pay for electricity or data, or hold spare parts.
Day-to-day running sits with the operator too. LockVault monitors every locker 24/7 from a remote operations dashboard, and handles guest support, refunds, maintenance, software updates and insurance. If a guest cannot open a door or a payment needs refunding, that is LockVault’s call to resolve, not your front-of-house team’s.
This is the difference between revenue share and buying lockers outright: the venue trades the full rental revenue for a share of it, in return for carrying none of the cost or operational load. The two routes are set side by side in revenue share against buying lockers.
The gross is split, and the venue is paid monthly
The split applies to gross rental revenue: the total guests pay at the kiosk or through pre-booking, before any costs. Nothing is deducted for power, connectivity, maintenance or support, because the operator carries those costs on its own side of the ledger.
A typical venue share with LockVault is 40% of gross. The final split is agreed after a site survey, because two venues with the same footfall can produce very different locker demand depending on how long guests stay, what they carry and where the lockers sit.
Guest prices are agreed with the venue at the site survey, by the hour, the four-hour block and the day, with charging and XL charging lockers priced above a standard one. The price list shapes the gross, so it belongs in the same conversation as the split, and the current guest rates are published on LockVault’s own site rather than here because they move with the season and the site.
Payment runs on a fixed calendar. An itemised statement arrives on the 1st of each month showing hires, revenue and your share; the payout follows by the 15th. Pricing is reviewed once a year. A proposal, including the proposed split for your site, comes within 48 hours of an enquiry.
A worked example from the calculator defaults
The locker revenue calculator starts from four inputs: daily footfall, the share of guests who hire a locker, the average fee and the number of operating days. Its defaults are 3,000 daily footfall, 15% using a locker, a £6 average fee and 300 operating days. The arithmetic runs like this.
| Step | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Hires a day | 3,000 footfall × 15% | 450 hires |
| Gross a day | 450 hires × £6 average fee | £2,700 |
| Gross a year | £2,700 × 300 operating days | £810,000 |
| Venue share at 40% | £810,000 × 40% | £324,000 a year |
| Venue share a month | £324,000 ÷ 12 | £27,000 |
The defaults describe a year-round attraction. A festival compresses the same logic into a few days: higher footfall, a higher share of attendees hiring because they carry more and stay longer, and a run of event days rather than 300 trading days. Change the inputs to your own site before you read anything into the result. Revenue figures are estimates from footfall and typical conversion. The final split and forecast come from a site survey.
What changes the split
The site survey is where the percentage is set, and it weighs the things that move locker demand and cost. Footfall matters, but so does dwell time: a guest who stays six hours tends to hire a locker more readily than one who stays forty minutes. The mix of locker types matters, because charging lockers carry higher prices. Siting matters, since a locker bank by the entrance, a cloakroom queue or a changing area is used more than one at the far end of a car park.
Costs move the split too. A container that can sit on an open pitch with sun on its roof costs less to run than a bank squeezed into a basement that needs a mains feed and a cabled connection. A long-term fitted bank of 24 to 240 lockers is a different proposition from a 180-locker container that arrives for a three-day event, runs within hours and leaves on a lorry. Season length, event count and the chance of repeat bookings all feed into the offer.
What should not change the split is anything hidden. If a provider’s percentage looks high, ask what is deducted before it is applied. A share of gross with no deductions is simpler to check against your own gate numbers than a share of net with a long list of costs behind it.
Contract questions to ask any provider
Revenue share contracts are short compared with a hardware purchase, but a few clauses decide whether the deal still looks good in year three. Put these to every provider, including us.
- Term and exit. Ask how long the initial term is, what notice ends it, and what happens to the lockers and any live pre-bookings on the last day.
- Hardware ownership. Ask who owns the lockers during and after the term, who insures them, and who pays if one is damaged by a guest or by weather. With LockVault, the hardware is funded, maintained and insured by LockVault.
- Pricing control. Ask who sets guest prices, how often they can change, and whether you can agree seasonal or event rates.
- Data. Ask who holds the transaction data, what you receive in the monthly statement, and where card data goes. Card data should go to a PCI DSS Level 1 acquiring partner and never touch the venue’s hardware or the operator’s own kiosk code.
- Service levels. Ask what uptime is committed, how faults are detected and how quickly they are fixed. LockVault commits to a 99.9% uptime service level and monitors remotely around the clock.
- Guest support and refunds. Ask who answers the guest at the kiosk, who issues refunds, and how unclaimed items are handled at close.
- Reviews. Ask when the split and prices are reviewed, and whether either side can trigger a review if footfall changes.
For a fuller checklist covering power, connectivity, integration and insurance, see what a lockers-as-a-service deal should include. If your venue is a festival, festival locker hire costs and set-up covers the event-specific detail.
What VenueOra does here
VenueOra deploys smart lockers on revenue share through LockVault: no upfront cost, a typical venue share of 40% of gross, a statement on the 1st and payment by the 15th. The service started at festivals, and festival ticketing, cashless and lockers shows how it sits alongside wristbands and gate scanning. Revenue figures are estimates from footfall and typical conversion. The final split and forecast come from a site survey.