Wing Fest is the undisputed king of chicken wing festivals – and the largest event of its kind anywhere in the world. Its flagship London festival attracts over 20,000 visitors each day, all eager to sample award-winning wings and enjoy the vibrant atmosphere that has made Wing Fest a fan favourite.
With crowds flocking to food trucks and bars, speed of payment is critical. Queues can stretch over 100 metres, and every second counts for traders looking to serve customers quickly and maximise revenue during the short window of each event. Reliable, high-speed connectivity ensures transactions process instantly – keeping queues moving and customers happy.
By 2023, Gorilla Events had expanded Wing Fest into five major festivals across the UK, each attracting record-breaking crowds. Over ten years, the event’s rapid growth had seen not only a surge in ticket sales but also a dramatic increase in food and drink transactions – putting greater pressure than ever on network performance.
At each festival site, Gorilla Events required high-availability connectivity to power operations across multiple areas – including trader zones, production teams, stage and entertainment areas, media hubs, and VIP sections. The WiFi also needed the capacity to support live social media streaming and real-time digital engagement throughout the event.
Many venues were located in busy city centres, where network congestion was already high. The challenge was to ensure each site’s internet infrastructure could handle the intense volume of users and devices without compromise.
Whereas in the early days traders relied on their own 4G/5G connections to take payments, the rise in network contention with the growing event numbers meant that 4G/5G networks could no longer be relied on.
The impact was tangible – lost sales, disrupted communications, and inefficiencies across production teams. To eliminate these issues, Gorilla Events turned to Wireless Solutions for a dedicated, enterprise-grade event WiFi solution designed to deliver seamless, high-speed, and always-on connectivity – ensuring every payment, upload, and live stream went through without interruption.
Wireless Solutions implemented a high-availability connectivity solution across the entire Wing Fest site, providing ample bandwidth for traders and production teams, while also supporting contractors, media, and VIP guests.
A core network site office acted as the central hub for the event’s WiFi infrastructure, with internet connectivity delivered via satellite. To ensure continuity, 4G and 5G connections were configured as backup links, ready to take over seamlessly in the event of any satellite or hardware interruption.
A backup core switch provided an additional layer of resilience, automatically activating if the primary switch encountered a fault. Across the site, a network of wireless access points enabled traders in every area to connect efficiently, avoiding contention and maintaining strong, stable connections.
99.99% uptime across the network. No devices experienced a single drop in connectivity throughout the six-day event, thanks to the enterprise-grade design and months of meticulous preparation.
Faster, uninterrupted payments, making it the most profitable year across all Wing Fest locations.
A fully connected Media Centre, confidently sharing live social updates and promoting the event to audiences worldwide.
Happy traders, happy production teams, and a proud Wireless Solutions crew.
“Anyone working in events will know how hard it is to pull them off successfully. Every year there are new challenges, growth ambitions and fresh logistics to factor in.
Wireless Solutions work with us to provide the quality assurance that our connectivity solution is fit for purpose. From pre-event briefing to network design and build, they bring the expertise and ideas that we now rely on to ensure that we’re maximising our potential.
Once the project scope has been agreed, they deliver. Every time.
Wireless Solutions is a trusted partner and we see an exciting future with lots of potential ahead.”
We’re now looking at ways in which the internet can drive more revenue from Gorilla’s events, and working with them on their other events across the country. We also provide full connectivity and support for their HQ building. We’ve formed a trusted partnership for the future.
