25% growth in event revenue in 2023 for the Nation's favourite chicken wing festival
Wingfest is the king of all chicken wing festivals. The largest of its kind in the world, their flagship London event sells over 20,000 tickets each day.
With visitors eager to indulge in the very best chicken wings, along with a beer (or more) to wash it down, the food trucks and bars are know to have queues that stretch for 100 metres or more during the event.
Speed of payment is top priority – so that traders can keep up with the demand, and maximise their revenue opportunity over the few days of each event. And, or course, to ensure that guests aren’t queueing for any longer than they have to for their award-winning wings.
With a production team that’s big on communication for event safety and logistics, and a marketing team, media partners and social influencers vying to release eye-catching content to cover the popular event, connectivity is business critical.
A WiFi network strong enough to support the production team, huge trader sales, VIPs and journalists is all part of the strategy to help the future growth of the mighty Wingfest.
Gorilla Events needed a connectivity provider that they could trust to deliver robust connectivity without downtime to support the number of transactions taken during by the event, and optimise its success.
WiFi without downtime
Seamless trader connectivity from start to finish
In 2023, Gorilla Events hosted five Wingfest chicken wing festivals across different UK locations.
Due to its growth in popularity over the 10 years since inception, the number of tickets sold, and therefore amount of food and drink sold has also also grown.
At each Wingfest event site, Gorilla requested high availability connectivity for the traders (including food, drinks and entertainment vendors) plus the production team (for access to online systems), stage areas, the media centre and VIP areas.
The WiFi solution needed to cope with a high demand to ensure that live social media streaming could take place also.
With some of the venues being city centre locations, we needed to consider volumes of people in the local area and ensure that the internet solution on site was adequate.
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.
Traders and production staff were experiencing drops in connectivity that were preventing payments from going through and causing frustration when trying to get online.
Loss in revenue and interrupted site communication were becoming an issue, and so a high availability event WiFi solution was sought to ensure that no transactions would be lost, and guarantee always-on event comms.
The solution
Wireless Solutions delivered connectivity solution for high availability connectivity across the whole of the Wingfest site areas, which would allow enough bandwidth for the traders and production crew, plus give access to contractors, media and VIPs.
A core network site office was the central HQ for the event WiFi solution, with internet being brought in over satellite.
4G & 5G offered backup internet for any satellite interruptions or hardware failures.
A spare core switch offered high availability for the network control, immediately kicking in seamlessly if the core switch experienced failure.
A network of wireless access points across the site would allow traders in each area to connect without contention. The results were:
- 100% uptime from our network. No devices on the WiFi network experienced a single drop in connectivity at any point during the 6 days. This was thanks to the enterprise grade high availability network design, work that was carried out in the months leading up to the event to ensure it was fit for purpose.
- Faster payments, making it the biggest revenue generating year across all event sites.
- A Media Centre that could confidently post social updates across the globe, promoting the event.
- Happy traders, happy production staff and a happy Wireless Solutions team.
What's next?
We’re now in talks with Gorilla Events about using the internet to drive more revenue from their events in 2024. We’re also excited to be working with them on some new events.
Comment of the week:
“The WiFi was just brilliant. Silky smooth from start to finish.”
What Wireless Solutions Can Offer You
We’re committed to bringing better event WiFi to the UK market.
Here’s why we’re different.
Experienced Network design
We produce site designs to show you exactly where you'll get connectivity. By agreeing this up front, we know your requirement and make sure we deliver.
Cost management
We'll make sure your costs are managed at every stage thanks to our thorough design process. This means no nasty surprises.
Excellent track record
With 100% uptime in 2023, as to speak to one of our clients to hear it from the horse's mouth.
Professional team
Our team of experienced engineers will give you exceptional service, and be a pleasure to work with. We see ourselves as part of your team.
New ideas
We have ideas that go beyond just connectivity. Our experience of working with large events means that we can bring fresh ideas to your table.
Delivery that goes to plan
We have a track record of delivering to the expectations set when we agree the contract. We're always on time, on budget.
Client Comment
Dan Baxter
“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.”
