If you’re running an event, you may rely on WiFi connectivity to carry out both business-critical and non-critical activities, including:
- Taking payments
- Electronic Ticketing
- Event registration
- Production crew
- Live streaming
- PR, social media and promotion
- Guest and VIP WiFi access
- Captive portals
Most event organisers hire an event WiFi service provider that has the expertise to deliver reliable connectivity to suit the demands of the event.
There are a number of event WiFi providers on the market, each specialising in different types of events – indoor, outdoor, small and large. Some offer additional event technology services like captive portals, security and people/car counting.
Who are the best event WiFi Providers?
Here are 3 of the best event WiFi providers based on reputation to deliver:
Wireless Solutions
Specialists in greenfield sites, outdoor events over large areas such as Badminton Estate, Henley Regatta and Henley Festival, Wireless Solutions has built a strong reputation for reliable event WiFi services, being easy to work with and delivering an excellent user experience when it comes to WiFi.
Wireless Solutions is taking a new approach to event WiFi with their high availability methodology. This adds resilience to the internet connection, infrastructure and networking technology to deliver 99.99% uptime, even when incidents like Starlink outages occur.
Customer reviews
“Wireless Solutions has been transformation to the IT function at Henley Festival. It’s one challenge I can say we’ve well and truly overcome, and it’s enabling the next stages of our evolution.” – Henley Festival.
“The Wireless Solutions teams’ expertise is second to none. They’ve delivered the best WiFi results we’ve ever experienced, and more than this, are a trusted and respected member of the team. They bring ideas and innovation, and most importantly, deliver the goods.” – Wing Fest.
Noteable strengths
Reliability, high availability, large events, greenfield sites, guest WiFi, live streaming from remote locations, planning and coverage where there is high contention.
Pylon One
Specialists in public and corporate events, Pylon one excels in event technology and IT services to event venues including exhibition centres and venues where an internet supply is available.
Pylon one supports event production companies to deliver CCTV, people counting services and networking at events like NYE London Fireworks, and the King’s Birthday celebrations.
Customer reviews
“Bonham’s have worked with Pylon One since 2015, we have a multi-year contract. Pylon One supports Bonhams at all off-site motoring sales throughout the UK, and across Europe and provide consultancy services in the USA. Pylon One are constantly bringing new ideas and innovation to help Bonhams in delivering a great experience to our clients both in the sale room and our on-line community. Pylon One are never phased by the unexpected and more importantly, the quality of their on-site support is exemplary.”
Noteable strengths
NVents
A rising star in the music festival scene, NVents come from a consulting and technical project management background and their CEO has been on the event scene for many years.
Technical by nature, they have a sound understanding of planning and implementing WiFi solutions for music festivals and events, and have worked with some of the large event production companies to support their technical requirements for events.
We expect to see them taking on larger and larger festivals as they successfully deliver the full package.
Customer reviews
“Nvents are brilliant to work with in both the advance planning and when on-site, explaining complex technical issues clearly and providing solutions to any challenges we experience that are quick and effective” U-Live.
Noteable strengths
A small but growing team with experience and a consultative approach, NVents are doing a great job in the field of WiFi, CCTV and monitoring.
What technology do I need for event WiFi?
In order to get reliable WiFi across your event site, you’ll need to consider it as 2 separate parts:
Your internet connection
There are 3 main types of internet supply:
- Fixed Fibre
- Satellite
- 4G/5G
The optimal solution is to have two individual fixed fibre lines providing internet into your event site, with inbuilt failover to ensure that if one fails the second one can take over.
Many events however don’t have this luxury. Wireless Solutions for example, specialising in greenfield sites, specialises in innovative ways of sourcing internet supplies for event sites, including sourcing fixed lines from locan businesses. Many event sites have to use a mix of fixed lines and satellites, and occasionally 4G/5G for their internet. Due to contention issues at busy events, we don’t recommend 4G/5G unless the bandwidth reqiurement on site is very low, and uncontended.
Tip: For some events the failover internet solution won’t provide enough bandwidth to support the entire site, so you’ll want to decide which services are critical and should run on the backup internet as priority should the main internet connection fail.
You’ll find more details on event internet our blog where we discuss how to get internet for your event.
A strong internet connection can be critical to your event’s success.
Your WiFi network
The site WiFi network allows devices to connect to the internet, and therefore needs to be installed across your event site. Wireless access points are at the very edge of your network and should be installed in every area where there are devices requiring connectivity.
Careful planning is required to ensure that there are enough access points, with resilience built into the network should any of the access points fail.
A WiFi network for an event typically consists of:
- A network core
- Fibre cabling infrastructure
- Edge technology
1.The network core is the central hub of your WiFi system. It includes the key software, firewalls, and switching infrastructure that keep everything running smoothly.
Most companies use either Juniper or Cisco equipment. Cisco tends to be more widely used because many engineers are familiar with it, while Juniper is known for offering stronger performance in some setups.
Explore the difference between Cisco and Juniper for event WiFi.
Tip: Where many event producers as what speeds they can expect from a WiFi network, what’s more important is availability.
Enterprise-grade technology gives better control over the network, allowing WiFi providers to zone the WiFi access and ensure that the traders and production have their own uncontended networks, improving security and performance.
Explore the techniques used by experts in event WiFi to ensure high availaibility WiFi for events.
2.Cabling the site requires a more resource-heavy installation but leads to better quality of connectivity. Your wireless connectivity should only be between the end device and the wireless access points.
3. The edge technology consist of switches and access points which allow the devices to connect to the network.
Testing, Monitoring and support
To keep your event WiFi reliable and performing at its best, it’s important to have proper testing, monitoring, and support in place.
Experienced providers will thoroughly test and certify your network before the event goes live. To make sure everything runs smoothly, be sure to set aside enough time before the start for a full test and any final tweaks.
Read more about how to test your event WiFi network.
Whilst on-site support will add extra cost to your event over remote support, if your connectivity is important it’s highly recommended for a stress-free experience.
Key takeaways
To guarantee high quality WiFi at your event, capable of supporting essential connectivity for your crew and traders, we recommend partnering with a professional event WiFi provider that has proven experience with similar events.
Make sure the network is built using enterprise-grade technology and includes built-in redundancy. Ideally, it should feature failover systems for both internet access and the WiFi network, ensuring a backup is available in case of hardware or communication issues.
If you’d like any help, you can contact us for further advice.
