Case Studies

Hay Festival End-to-End Event Technology Service

8% increase in ticket sales, 'Listen Live' launch showcasing innovation in event technology

Festival Wifi Case Studies

Hay Festival Hay-on-Wye began in 1988 as a local gathering of book enthusiasts and has since evolved to become one of the largest events celebrating the world of literary and arts. Spanning 11 days, with a programme including leading media and literary icons, Hay Festival is considered an international institution, attracting visitors and celebrities from around the globe.

In 2025 the festival sold more than 200,000 tickets and welcomed around 7,000 school pupils, along with many thousands more free-entry visitors through its doors.

To support the event’s rapid growth, for 2025 Hay Festival carried out a total review their IT provisions . They wanted a technology provider that could help drive innovation, accessibility and growth, working as a close partner with them to support the event’s ongoing evolution.

The Project

The success of Hay Festival soon revealed that their technology was starting to hold them back:

The production team were informed that in 2024 the food vendor village was unable to get WiFi connectivity, leaving traders struggling to take payments
Connectivity across the site was unreliable – only working in specific areas rather than across the entire site
The BBC streaming service had to bring in its own internet service to allow them to live broadcast the event – across TV, radio and other media outlets that were relying on their content

Hay Festival wanted a full service supplier who could confidently deliver the full end-to-end IT function for the event, including:

Site-wide connectivity for all traders, stages, media and production crew, with additional free WiFi zones for the general public
Laptops and printers for the production team and box office, all connected to a single network for seamless access to systems and printing capability
Security cameras across the site, with live monitoring
BBC broadcast streaming
Hay broadcast streaming
Listen WiFi – a new service to allow anyone across the event site to listen live to any stage
Captive portal for public WiFi to capture a database of attendees for future targeting
Artist and Liason WiFi in the Green Room

Following a tender process, we were delighted that they chose Wireless Solutions as their new IT partner to work with for 2025. After a thorough review of Hay Festival’s requirements, operational challenges, and continued growth, it became clear that their event network and technology solution needed a complete redesign to be truly fit for purpose.

What we delivered

The results spoke for themselves

A smarter, stronger event technology solution

We implemented a high-availability network architecture – to guarantee service continuity across revenue-generating systems, live operations, and broadcast activity. Rather than relying on simple backup equipment, the new solution provides automatic and immediate failover the moment any part of the network encounters an issue.

Our solution included:

A dedicated 1G fibre internet connection with Starlink as backup, giving the festival multiple resilient internet pathways and the confidence that comes with them
A high availability network core featuring multiple servers, firewalls, and network switches – all designed with inbuilt and immediate failover for guaranteed continuity of service
Site-wide access points with overlapping coverage, bringing seamless, uninterrupted connectivity to the whole event site – including, finally, the food village
26 cameras deployed across the event site for full CCTV coverage
50 Laptops, pre-authenticated on the network, for the production team to use from day one
2 high-volume printers – one for the production office, and one for the artists’ green room
Dedicated internet drops for the BBC and Bubble Productions, supporting multiple streams broadcast simultaneously to the website and other media outlets, covering all stages, and with international captions
Event control staffed by an SIA-licensed CCTV operative monitoring the security feed around the clock
On-site support throughout the whole event

A late-stage request for Listen WiFi was also handled by creating its own network dedicated to multicast broadcast to user devices. People could connect via the app, select the event session they’d like to listen to, and live stream the audio from anywhere on the site. Hay visitors could now relax in the cafe while listening to the session running live at the main stage.

Key Highlights

Ticket sales rose 8% on the previous year

Thousands of devices connected to our network each day without any service interruptions. We tailored the network to the specific needs of each user group, ensuring everyone could access what they needed, when they needed it.

More than 50,000 books where sold during the festival – with every transaction occurring over our network

Listen WiFi was successfully launched for the first time, showcasing a new level of innovation and accessibility

An enhanced layer of network security, along with additional perimeter cameras monitored by our security team, provided even greater peace of mind.

Hay Festival did not experience a single loss of connectivity or moment of downtime during the entire live festival or the build period.

What next?

Several pieces of feedback really stood out for us:

The BBC asked, “What have you done to the internet?” For the first time, they were able to stream all their broadcasts and programmes over our network instead of relying on their own satellite OB truck.
We were also told that ‘service usability had improved significantly’. Our enterprise-grade equipment, high-availability design, and bespoke event network configuration combined to deliver fast, seamless connectivity for all users.
Food village traders were extremely grateful to be able to take online payments without losing a single transaction due to poor connectivity.

We now enjoy a long-term contract to provide event technology services for the Hay Festival Hay-on-Wye, as well as also providing connectivity for their Festive Winter Weekend.

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