The Immergut Festival goes online

The Immergut Festival in Neustrelitz is one of the first smaller open-air festivals to rely on a digital infrastructure on the premises

Free WiFi for guests at a festival? We offer that, too, of course. But it's not really the guests who want to go to WiFi , but the various devices and digital services backstage that require an eventWiFi at festivals.

The Internet of Things has long since become a reality in everyday event life, and the service that visitors expect today requires an extremely reliable data connection.

Examples? Well, let's work our way through from front to back.

At the entrance, visitors appear with their online tickets. These have to be validated in real time via the Internet. Still others were put on the guest list at the last minute and the team at the counter must be informed immediately in the corresponding online document, otherwise there are the usual discussions. On the grounds, the first visitors eventually run out of cash - that's not only stupid for the people concerned, but also for sales.

Cashless payment methods such as VISA, Google Pay or Apple Pay etc. provide the solution - but only if the terminals have a reliable Internet connection. Backstage, in the back office, it must be possible to communicate sensibly - even with those services that these days only run in the cloud. And then there's the social media team, the press and VIPs who want to get photos, videos and stories online as quickly as possible.

And in the future, the demand for a WiFi connection will become even greater, because the trend is clearly moving in the direction of networking and central control. Whether digital signage, gastro equipment, security technology, livestreams or new entertainment formats - they all have one thing in common: Internet must be available.

And then there's the free WiFi for guests. Whether at selected points (e.g. at points of sale) or across the board - if desired, we also bring visitors online.

Everything that runs as a matter of course via an Internet connection in everyday life has to be rethought at events. Because bandwidth is a rare commodity and surrounding LTE masts are almost always hopelessly overloaded. Where even making a phone call becomes a test of patience, a usable data connection can hardly be expected. The available capacities are therefore divided into individual areas and monitored throughout the event. To ensure fail-safety, we rely on a combination of LTE directional radio to more distant masts outside the site and a satellite connection.

So let's summarize again. Why does a festival need WiFi?

• Online ticket validation
• Digital guest list
• Cashless payment transactions
• Back Office
• Social media communication
• Press and VIP
• WiFi for guests

One of the festivals that we have been providing with a modern WiFi infrastructure for several years now is the Immergut Festival. We show some impressions of the setup in this video.

Immergut is a music festival that has been held in Neustrelitz in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern since 2000. It is organized by Immergutrocken e. V. The festival has always been organized by volunteers and is intended to enrich the cultural landscape in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. We are therefore very happy to support the project and are always very happy every year when May approaches and it is said again: "Immergut is always good".

Are you interested in WiFi at your festival? Please contact us. We will be happy to advise you.