Trending Connectivity Solutions for Remote Site Music Festivals.

Music festival organisations require internet access and mobile connectivity to operate many of their backroom functions. This necessitates the installation of a temporary mobile connectivity solution on site which will also benefit on-site visitors whether they are vendors, sponsors or festival-goers.

Festival organisers rely on connectivity on their remote sites for a number of services that may include cashless payment processing, contactless vendor ordering, accreditation checks, artist running order changes and similar functions. Most sizable music festivals that take place on remote sites now utilise 5G network connectivity by installing temporary telecoms towers but there are alternative connectivity solutions that organisers and other site visitors may consider should this technology become unavailable. What is trending in remote site connectivity for users in 2023.

Temporary 5G Telecoms Towers. 
Event organisers will assign a telecoms contractor to install a temporary tower on site and this is a common solution for many remote site festivals. Depending on the site layout the telecoms contractor may install more than one tower to ensure complete coverage over the site. Other key considerations will be bandwidth requirements and expected data usage by users. Any tower installation requires expertise to set up and maintain the service for the duration of an event. The contractor will be tasked with ensuring that sufficient coverage is maintained, and any interruptions of service are minimised. 

Satellite Internet. 
An alternative to the installation of a telecoms tower is to use satellites to provide internet connectivity. This requires the installation of a ground station satellite dish which communicates with satellites in geostationary orbit. Once connected user’s devices send requests for data to the ground station and dish to the satellite which in turn communicates with the nearest network operations centre connected to the internet backbone. The data is processed and returned using the same process. These ground stations may be easier to install than a bulky telecoms tower but can be subject to latency or delays due to the distance data must travel between the ground station and the satellite. 

Mesh Networking.
Festival organisers may consider using mesh networking technologies on remote sites where individual's devices are directly connected to each other to create a network and can be ideal when mobile networks are unreliable. Each device acts as a node which sends and receives data and can be useful when Wi-Fi signals are weak. The data is transferred from device to device (nodes) until it reaches its intended destination. Mesh networking is scalable and may work well for organisers who need to send data to each other on site, however, these networks can be less secure than traditional network solutions.

Organisers will almost always prefer to rely on the installation of a 5G telecoms tower as this can handle data up to 1Gbps whereas the other temporary connectivity solutions can be limited to just 500Mbps. Satellite and mesh networking may therefore be more suitable as back up solutions rather than providing core remote site connectivity.

For festival organisers planning their events using a software management platform like Festival Pro gives them all the functionality they need manage every aspect of their event logistics. The guys who are responsible for this software have been in the front line of event management for many years and the features are built from that experience and are performance artists themselves. The Festival Pro platform is easy to use and has comprehensive features with specific modules for managing artists, contractors, venues/stages, vendors, volunteers, sponsors, guestlists, ticketing, cashless payments and contactless ordering.

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