Download Festival 2015: Free WiFi to 90,000 rock fans
Customer: Live Nation Entertainment
intechnologyWiFi put in a resounding performance at the Download Festival (12–14 June), with the provision of seamless, free WiFi to over 90,000 music fans – kicking off a lucrative partnership with Live Nation Entertainment to provide free WiFi at its four largest summer festivals in 2015.
The challenge
In late 2014, Live Nation Entertainment – the world’s leading live entertainment company ¬– were looking to increase their customer offering by, for the first time, offering free WiFi at the largest summer festivals under their ownership in the UK (Download, Latitude, Reading and Creamfields).
Festivals and other large-scale open events represent a significant connectivity challenge, with the high volume of people in a concentrated area often meaning traditional forms of connectivity (i.e. mobile/cellular via 3G or 4G) are often insufficient, or even unavailable completely.
intechnologyWiFi had already proven itself as a provider of free, efficient and blanket festival WiFi coverage during the summer of 2014, with the provision of free WiFi at Hyde Park Festival and T In the Park (itself a Live Nation event), providing over half a million people access to share their photos and videos online at the click of a button.
The solution
Invited by Live Nation Entertainment to tender alongside a number of household names in the connectivity arena (including BT), intechnologyWiFi were successful and the contract was duly awarded in December 2014.
The first of the four festivals under the contract, Download Festival, took place at Donington Park, Leicestershire, 12–14 June 2015. Download is the UK’s most popular rock and heavy music festival and welcomed over 90,000 fans in its 12th year.
intechnologyWiFi owns all of its hardware and software and possesses the in-house expertise required to design, install and maintain a seamless public WiFi network from conception to completion, so the installation of the network infrastructure at Download took place during just seven days prior to the event, led by a dedicated team of 16 highly trained engineers.
Seamless, high-speed free WiFi was provided within the main arena, various camping areas and the VIP area.
The outcome
While rocking out over the weekend of the festival to the likes of heavy rock and metal giants, Slipknot, Muse and Kiss, over 13,000 unique users took advantage of the free WiFi, with nearly 10,000 tracked concurrently.
These users consumed a total of 2.2TB of data – the equivalent of sharing 11 million photos, 200,000 video clips or over 25 million tweets!
‘Live Nation is delighted to have intechnologyWiFi on board for our flagship festivals,’ said Glen Littlewood, Marketing Director of Live Nation. ‘Ensuring that those attending these events have fast, efficient WiFi coverage is central to creating unrivalled fan experiences.’
Download Festival WiFi usage: Key stats
- 2.2TB data passed over the network
- 56% Android users; 38% iOS users; 6% Microsoft users
- 65% email details login; 35% Facebook details login
- Average 1m 30s login registration time
Natalie Duffield, CEO, intechnologyWiFi
It’s safe to say that intechnologyWiFi truly rocked Download. Now full steam ahead for Latitude, Reading and Creamfields!
intechnologyWiFi is part of Intechnology plc and is owned by Peter Wilkinson, one of the UK’s most successful technology entrepreneurs, with a proven track record of delivering profitable, free technical solutions, including the first free consumer internet service, Freeserve.
If you would like to discuss your options for developing a free WiFi solution for your event or festival, please get in touch. The team would love to speak to you.
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Whether you’re a local authority looking to provide public WiFi or seeking a connectivity solution for Smart Cities, the IoT or 5G / Small Cells in your town or city, or if you are interested in partnering with us around the Connected City Platform in any of our forthcoming town and city roll-outs, we’d love to explain more about who we are and what we do.
