Every winter, Parker’s Piece in Cambridge is transformed into a festive destination. Twinkling lights, an open-air ice rink, a Big Wheel, curling lanes and an Alpine Lodge all pull in people from across the city and beyond.
Christmas in Cambridge is free to enter, with bookable attractions that can sell out in advance. It runs seven days a week for more than seven weeks, from mid-November to the start of January. There’s a Christmas market, a funfair, Santa visits, live entertainment and plenty of street food and festive drinks. It’s a family day out, a night with friends and a Christmas party venue for up to 1,500 people, all in one place.
Behind the magic, an event like this runs on connectivity. Traders need to take card payments, bookings need to go through, and the team needs to stay in contact across a busy open-air site, with an ice rink, a market and a funfair all running at once.
That’s where we came in. Wireless Solutions was brought in to deliver reliable WiFi across the event, so the team could focus on creating a Christmas to remember.
For Christmas in Cambridge, our brief was clear: deliver WiFi for the production team and traders, plus security across the whole site.
The requirements shaped everything we designed:
With the requirements agreed, we planned the network and security coverage around the site layout, so every attraction, trader pitch and production area had what it needed.
The outcome
The WiFi network ran smoothly from start to finish, with no problems and no downtime.
Resilience was built in from the start. Our high availability networking solution and overlapping access points meant there was no single point of failure, so the network stayed strong even at the busiest times.
The security setup did its job too. Our cameras covered every area required, giving the team the confidence that the whole site was being watched around the clock.
Behind the scenes, proactive monitoring meant the network would alert us first if anything needed attention. Support was just a phone call away for the production team and traders, but the network stayed resilient. Over the seven weeks, just a couple of quick site visits were required to replace rain-soaked connectors, which had no impact on operations, thanks to the inbuilt resilience.
The result was a connected, secure Christmas in Cambridge, with traders taking payments and the production team running the event without a second thought for the technology.
Planning for Christmas in Cambridge 2027 is already underway, and we’re delighted to be returning.
Because the solution just worked, no major changes are needed. The network and security design did exactly what it was built to do, so our focus is on repeating that success rather than reinventing it.
We’ll review the site layout and the production team’s plans for next year, then fine-tune coverage where it’s needed. Otherwise, it’s the same reliable WiFi, the same site-wide security, and the same proactive monitoring, ready for another festive season.
