Spring is prime time for food festivals. If you’re gearing up to run your own event, you may be considering the options for festival WiFi.
As an organiser, it’s crucial you get it right to ensure your event runs smoothly for both you, your clients and customers.
Find out what you need to think about before the big day.
1. Coverage for your entire site is key
Spring food festivals often spread out across large open spaces, and many organisers make the mistake of only securing wireless internet for the main area.
All of your traders and customers need a strong connection to make the most of the event, so make sure your festival WiFi solutions cover the entire footprint of your food fest.
This prevents long queues of unhappy customers and hoards of tetchy traders.
Like any kind of temporary event WiFi, food festival WiFi needs to work for the reality of your site, so we recommend a full site survey, mapped access points, and planned coverage to eliminate dead spots before the setup starts.
As the saying goes, fail to prepare and prepare to fail.
2. Strong bandwidth for contactless payments
Gone are the days when a local food festival ran on cash payments. Today, all of your traders are likely to operate contactless card payments either through mobile phones or standalone devices running apps like Square, Zettle, or SumUp. All of these require sufficient tech to succeed.
And it’s not just card machines and mobile POS systems that need reliable WiFi – your traders may need to access various apps and systems to stay operational for the duration of the event.
Traders require a huge amount of bandwidth to cover simultaneous payments. Therefore, sophisticated WiFi for festivals includes dedicated bandwidth allocation for traders, separate networks for guests, and traffic prioritisation to protect payment systems first and foremost.
3. Built-in weather resilience
Spring weather in the UK is notoriously temperamental. You could have blue skies and sunshine one minute, and sideways rain and galeforce winds the next. So, festival organisers need to plan for all kinds of conditions – and that includes your WiFi network.
A strong temporary WiFi infrastructure can cater for wet grounds, changing layouts, equipment protection, and quick adjustments in the event of a downpour.
It can also protect you from relying on a single source of internet – all of our food festival solutions include hybrid connectivity to keep you online if one connection drops.
4. Scalable guest WiFi
Hopefully, your guests will be keen to shout out their favourite food vendors or share their festival experience via a live stream or Instagram story.
They also need a seamless connection for FaceTimes and WhatsApps back and forth with friends and family also attending.
Good WiFi connectivity allows customers to upload content to social media, leave reviews, locate loved ones, and generally have a fantastic time – and this is win-win for you, as good word-of-mouth travels fast.
Your guest WiFi network should be separate from your trader access, and it can even include data capture options for marketing purposes – maximising the potential of your event and future events too.
5. Reliable connections for you as an organiser
Of course, it’s not just your traders and guests who need good WiFi.
You also need to stay connected as an organiser – running ticketing systems, keeping in touch with your colleagues, and ensuring everyone can do their jobs to the highest standard, whether it’s your security staff or social media team.
A good hybrid WiFi setup doesn’t just cover your entire festival grounds, it also caters for the needs of every single person on-site.
5. Fast deployment and on-site support
Event organisers often approach us looking for high-speed internet services at short notice for food and beverage events.
While it’s always best to plan ahead, we understand you can have tight turnaround times, and speed is often critical.
One week you’re looking at an empty field, and the next it’s a fully operational local festival serving up everything from gyros to churros.
Your temporary event WiFi provider should install quickly during build phase and coordinate with production teams, as well as testing coverage before gates open to prevent any issues.
At Click Telecom, we can get you set up in as little as 24 hours, and even provide on-site or remote monitoring throughout the event to take any tech worries off your desk.
6. Peak performance
Food festivals tend to have predictable spikes at set times of day, like the midday moment when hunger strikes, or the rush for the bar in between live music sets.
Your WiFi solution needs to be designed around peak load rather than average usage, so capacity planning is critical.
When considering food festival WiFi, ask yourself:
- Is coverage mapped across the full site footprint?
- Is bandwidth allocated per user group?
- Is there a backup connectivity option?
- Are trader and guest networks separated?
- Who monitors performance during the event?
- How quickly can issues be resolved on site?
If you can’t answer these clearly, you need help securing reliable festival WiFi.
Speak to us about festival WiFi solutions to secure excellent connectivity for traders, attendees, and organisers
You’ve worked hard to find the best local producers, book entertainment, plan your layout, and promote ticket sales, so let’s treat your event WiFi with the same level of attention.
Robust festival WiFi supports everyone to make it a successful event. If you’re planning a spring food festival and want reliable, scalable temporary event WiFi designed around your site, get in touch and let’s make it your best event yet.
