Posts Tagged ‘Event IT’

• Showman’s Show 2011

  Date: 2011.10.16 | Category: Events, General | Response: 0

  This week sees our 4^th consecutive year exhibiting at the Showman’s Show. The show, at Newbury Showground on Wednesday 19th and Thursday 20th October, in a way marks a transition from the 2011 outdoor event season to the start of the 2012 season, although these days we see a variety of outdoor events year-round.

  

  Etherlive prepares for its 4th Showmans Show

  2012 in the UK is of course a bit of a one off with the Olympics and Paralympics occurring right at the peak of the outdoor event season. We are providing a number of services for Olympic related activity, such as all the IT, communications and broadcast provision for the London Media Centre, but we have been very careful to ensure this has no impact on our existing customers and their events.

  What is important though is booking and planning for 2012, especially in London and other locations that will see Olympic activity. Provision of connectivity such as fibre and broadband services will see longer lead times due to sheer demand (we are ordering many services already so that they are provisioned very early next year). Transportation is another area which is impacted with requirements on suppliers to submit transport plans for London well in advance of events if they occur during the broad Olympic period. These aspects and others are all good topics for discussion at Showman’s if you are planning an event in 2012.

  This year we are on Stand 71 of the indoor hall where we will be demonstrating a new generation of mobile VoIP handsets – allowing the freedom of a mobile phone with the cost advantages of VoIP. These units also couple up with an alarm and monitoring system providing a new level of integrated service for event organisers.

  We will also be launching our latest innovation; Event Band, a suite of tools using RFID technology facilitating payment systems, loyalty services, accreditation and crew management. This technology will sit alongside the latest generation wireless chip & pin PDQs providing reliable payment methods for bars, merchants, exhibitors and ticketing.

  The latest networked noise monitoring support offered by Etherlive will be on display, along with a demonstration of next generation satellite broadband, offering internet anywhere from the new KA band with higher internet speeds.

  Alongside all the new products we will also have our core network, communications and CCTV technologies on display, solutions that have been used time and time again across a wide range of events connecting thousands of users. Outside we will also have one of our communications tower lights offering CCTV, Wi-Fi and public address as well as an economical lighting system. This can be found on the Aceplant stand (169) at the end of Avenue G.

  Recently we announced that Etherlive has joined ESSA (Event Supplier and Services Association), alongside ongoing membership of the AIF (Association of Independent Festivals) and the ASAO (Association of Show and Agricultural Organisations). As well as actively participating in these organisations we also offer special services to fellow members.

  We will have plenty of staff on hand to discuss event requirements and provide cost effective solutions to a broad range of connectivity, communications and other event IT needs.

   

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• Free Wi-Fi – End of the story? Right?

  Date: 2011.10.07 | Category: Events, IT, Technology, Venue, WiFi | Response: 2

  Few things in life are as cut and dry as Sinatra vs Gaga or Apple vs Microsoft. The recent industry activity campaigning for free Wi-Fi at venues is a good example of something which should be straight forward, but is in fact a little more complicated.

  The ABPCO (Association of British Professional Conference Organisers) recently announced securing more than 100 signatures for its campaign to bring free Wi-Fi to major event venues across the UK. This is a great campaign and should help focus the minds of venues who overcharge for basic access to the internet. Whilst I support the movement I find myself sympathetic to the venues who now find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

  The hard place is the overwhelming demand for internet (of any type!). It’s exploding and will continue to do so; from smartphones, tablets and good old laptops, people need to be connected. What are they doing? Quickly replying to that email to keep momentum up in a project, sending photos and video to the office for those that can’t attend the event, using QR codes to look up data on stands, checking their mapping application to plan around the traffic…the list goes on and on and on.

  I was enjoying meeting customers at Square Meal just the other week and found myself sitting on the benches outside clearing email, eating a baguette chatting with several others doing the same thing. We were hanging onto a weak 3G signal (hence sitting outside!) instead of paying for access inside. If you needed another data point, apart from thinking how many times today you probably already used the smartphone in your pocket, a few months ago we provided a 300 acre Wi-Fi hotspot over the WOMAD festival and this year internet usage by attendees increased in excess of 250%.

  

  The glow of internet demand, image courtesy of Google

  The rock is the cost. Of course nothing is free and installing hundreds of access points across a large venue isn’t cheap, let alone the cost of having significant internet access behind the scenes. If you try to do it on the cheap it will only come back to bite you.

  I can see both arguments. Why give something away for free when people will pay for it? Especially when installing a quality venue wide Wi-Fi solution isn’t cheap. Infrastructure requires proper management, not to mention the cost of providing considerable internet backhaul.

  Unfortunately venues have few people to blame. Like several other industries they fail to realise new revenue opportunities from their infrastructure, instead opting to continue the ‘pay by hour, day or week’ just as they have done for many years. Customer understanding is also an issue – why at home is their broadband £12 per month and in a venue £10 per day? Whilst some of this is opportunistic pricing by the venue, there are real differences in infrastructure and cost to deliver a quality solution to a venue that works for all users. However this is probably the core of the issue – consistency. Sometimes you get good free Wi-Fi, sometimes you pay £10 and get poor Wi-Fi. This inconsistency leads to frustration, a lack of confidence and drives a feeling as to why anyone needs to pay for it at all.

  To me the answer is likely to be a middle ground. Firstly conferences and venues should be investing in greater levels of visibility to what people are doing with their network – for example why can’t the customers be metered against a range of price plans? Risky for the event if it’s simple pay as you go as this could rack up extensive charges, but price points could be negotiated. Secondly it’s setting the right expectations for the network that is in place. By all means offer a free network which is limited to X speed for X time with advertising and then, if you want, pay for more significant access.

  The second aspect is that we need to get to a point where venue Wi-Fi is certified or approved in some way so that potential users and organisers have some confidence and guarantee that they will get the service promised.

  The final point I would make is that venues should take a leaf from Facebook’s business model (or Google’s). We use their services every day – but have you ever paid for it? Of course they advertise abundantly but actually the most valuable element for them is your data – this could very simply be collected at venues and sold back to the event or other parties. It’s a contentious area but it is happening just about everywhere else.

  The discussion will continue for some time no doubt and it will be interesting to see how things develop over the next six months as venues compete to deliver additional services and as customers closely manage their budgets.

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• Can you hear me now? Femtocell to the rescue…

  Date: 2011.04.11 | Category: Events, Technology | Response: 0

  Mobile phones. Can’t live without them, can’t…well…er…you certainly can’t run an event without them. Mobile phone coverage continues to be a pain point for many customers. It’s normally the same story; everything is fine in the run up to the event but once the attendees arrive, making a call, using mobile internet or even sending an SMS becomes unreliable.

  Telecoms operators may install temporary masts at larger events (for varying commercial arrangements) however in many cases these are only linked back to the local town, which may already be near capacity and therefore only compound the problem. Generally the mobile network in the area simply isn’t designed to handle a ‘density spike’ such as a large gathering of handsets all communicating more than is ‘normal’. For smaller and more remote events the situation is even worse, where often there is no coverage at all.

  

  Shouting at the phone doesn't actually help, it just makes you feel better

  Providing high density mobile coverage is a complex area, but  a femtocell can help keep key staff connected via their mobile no matter what else is going on with the normal mobile network. Femtocell technology is essentially a miniature cell phone mast for a pre-approved list of people. The unit can be linked to the internet services on site and route a number of concurrent calls for the authorised handsets as if they were on the normal mobile phone network. With a range of 150m radius it’s the perfect unit to have at a production enclosure, box office or artist/VIP area.

  The pre-approved handsets can be added in a matter of seconds, whilst the unit itself is outdoor ruggedised so can be installed on the same infrastructure which carries other services such as site Wi-Fi, like for example our communications tower light.  So what’s the catch? It’s only Vodafone handsets which will work with the unit today. Although not ideal it does at least provide a way of continuing to use the service, regardless of everyone around watching their bars disappear. For non-Vodafone handsets temporary Vodafone SIMs can be provided.

  The femtocell has been added to our 2011 services along with some other additional voice communication products such as a specialised wireless handset which integrates with existing VoIP services,  all designed to keep an event operations team functioning smoothly.

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