Encrypted Emergency Communications for Music Festivals.

Any large-scale music festival with tens of thousands of festival-goers can be exposed to a variety of scenarios that present a threat to safety. Having seamless communications protocols is an essential part of event planning to protect everyone on a festival site. How can organisers build processes and systems that keep all their emergency communication channels secure.

A modern music festival should be moving towards a secure, multi-layered digital ecosystem and away from analogue-based broadcasts. Ensuring that emergency communications are appropriately encrypted is an essential part of building a robust process that connects all festival staff with security personnel and emergency services. An encrypted emergency communications infrastructure is an essential part of the emergency contingency planning needed for any large-scale music festival.

Festival Site Emergencies.
Organisers will need to be prepared for a variety of potential emergencies during an event with secure communication channels to enable a fast response. Extreme weather conditions can be life threatening and may include extreme heat, flooding, high winds, and lightning, for example. Crowd surges and crushing are also common in emergency situations that require a coordinated response to prevent injuries. Although rare the threat of terrorist attacks or aggressive behaviour by festival-goers also needs an immediate response. Medical emergencies are common on festival sites sometimes due to someone’s underlying poor health or substance abuse, and these need to be treated urgently by on-site medical staff. Technical failures that cause electric short circuits and lighting failures can leave large crowds in total darkness. A structural collapse of equipment can sometimes occur when crowds surge, and taking preemptive action is essential to prevent injuries. All these scenarios require an appropriate response by staff and emergency services to keep everyone on a site safe.

Risk Assessment and Legal Compliance.
During the festival planning phase, the production of a risk assessment document is a normal part of the process. The risk assessment should also include the potential threats to emergency communication channels which can impact the organisers ability to respond to a situation in an appropriate and timely manner. Potential threats can come from network jamming, signal interception, or a coordinated physical disruption, making encryption of communication channels essential. For UK and European based festivals there is also a legal requirement under the Martyn’s Law (UK) and the NIS2 Directive (EU) which require organisers to take certain steps to ensure the safety of attendees and secure emergency communication channels are a key part of this.

Communications Infrastructure.
Festival organisers will usually sub-contract the implementation of network infrastructure systems on a festival site because the requirements can be technically complex. For staff and emergency services, organisers should check that the contractor is using identity-based access (mTLS (Mutual TLS) or OIDC) protocols on a private network. For primary voice communications used by emergency services and senior festival operatives, the encrypted protocols should be the AES-256 P25 / TETRA standards. For primary data communications, the networks should be private 5G (SA) secured with biometric access control. Most festival organisers use walkie talkies for communications during festivals, and these should use AES-256 bit encryption to maintain security. Organisers don't rely solely on walkie talkies but usually implement a hybrid system that uses private 5G networks to maintain secure communications for emergency situations.

Mass Alerting.
In some situations, it may become necessary to distribute emergency communication to everyone on a festival site. This mass alerting is sometimes referred to as the CAP (Common Alerting Protocol), usually sent via the festival app or on public screens, for example. This type of emergency alert should be sent using CAP v1.2 Over HTTPS for example. Organisers should ensure there is an appropriate process for emergency broadcasts that originate from a single point of activation, usually the event’s central control centre. During an emergency broadcast a multi-channel push is generally used; alerts use full screen overrides on festival apps plus messages on digital signage and LED stage screens for example. The secure encryption of emergency alerts is essential to prevent false or fake alerts from being generated.

Building Backup Processes.
If primary communication networks go down, organisers need to ensure that there is a backup plan for emergency communications. Typically, the integration of a LoRaWAN Mesh network across a festival site enables low bandwidth radios to transmit text-based emergency coordinates between staff, for example. Modern mesh radio units use E2EE (End-to-End Encryption), ensuring that even if a unit is stolen, an attacker cannot read the security team's coordinates.

For festival organisers planning their next event 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, site planning, cashless payments and contactless ordering.

Image by Heber Vazquez via Pexels

<< Back to articles