Gorilla

WingFest Event WiFi

Service Type

Event WiFi

Location

Multiple UK Cities

The Challenge

Client Requirements

WingFest, one of Gorilla’s flagship events, is the world’s largest chicken wing festival, held in open spaces around the UK, to celebrate all things chicken wings. Each event hosts multiple food vendors as well as several bars that attract queues of customers from the moment the event opens. All of the vendors, bar payment devices and entrances require seamless WiFi to ensure that a high volume of payments can be processed, and tickets can be checked. In addition, the production team needs WiFi whilst on-site to manage the events. All five events require coverage over a two-day live phase and must be tested and commissioned on-site prior to the live events.

Foreseen Challenges

Because of the large scale of the events with over 5000 visitors in a single location, the local 4G and 5G networks cannot be solely relied on. No fixed line or fibre access is available to the event organisers to offer an alternative method of connectivity. In addition, whilst the volume of vendors is not an issue, the large outdoor footprint of the venues means that widespread coverage is required.

The Solution

Solution Proposed

Fli-Fi’s event connect service incorporated 4G, 5G and Satellite for this requirement, to gain optimal bandwidth to the site. Several access points were strategically positioned around each site to ensure that all vendors’ payment systems had excellent and reliable coverage, so they could take fast and guaranteed sales. The production team had their own network enabling them to communicate across the duration of the build, live event and de-rig.

Installation Process

The hardware was pre-staged and tested prior to deployment to allow for stress-free and non-invasive implementation as far as possible, reducing the engiuneering time needed to get things up and running. With the scale of these sites, multiple engineers were deployed to install the foundations of the network, the cabling and mount the access points. Followed by a further day of refinement and testing.

Support Given

Because connectivity is critical to the success of these events, we placed engineering resource onsite for the duration. This gave Gorilla Events the confidence that should something go wrong, it could be immediately addressed. Armed with hot swappable hardware in case of failure, coupled with full remote monitoring and alarming, it meant that if anything went wrong, we would know about it and could respond immediately.

Outcome

All vendors at all of the Wingfest events were able to connect to Fli-Fi’s networks, feeling assured that it would work every time. This meant they could get on with producing and selling the very best chicken wings to be found in the UK. Fli-Fi has been working with Gorilla for 5 years now, covering all of their connectivity requirements for their events across the UK.
"We are an integral part of Gorilla’s event team now. From WingFest to Henley Regatta, Silverstone, and corporate events, they create some truly unique experiences – all of which come with a unique connectivity challenge. We look forward to continuing to work with them as a business, and can see huge potential for them to grow further within the events market."

Ashley Smith

Director, Fli-Fi

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