With the growth of personal connectivity reaching new heights seemingly by the hour, it’s impossible to create a compelling event experience with0ut offering a rock-solid wifi connection.
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In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs the essential human needs are mapped out in pyramid form. The most crucial of needs are found at the bottom of this pyramid, while the slightly less critical needs are found as you move on up. It’s safe to say that had Maslow built out this hierarchy in , he surely would have included “good wifi connection” somewhere at the base.
During the last leg of Social Tables’ roadshow, Matt Harvey, the President of Client Network Services at PSAV, shared his insight on connectivity at events, and coached attendees on what to ask for when negotiating event wifi. In his talk, Matt communicated the three crucial aspects to comprehend in order to secure the best connection possible for your next event.
Here are the two crucial event wifi terms you need to know:
Let’s focus on that last definition. It’s mission-critical for you and your event! To give you some added context, here are some examples of what is known as “shared bandwidth”:
For event wifi, you want to be sure to confirm that you are dealing with “dedicated bandwidth” NOT “shared bandwidth”. That is, if you’d like you and your attendees to have a consistent, even basic, connection to the internet throughout your event. Dedicated bandwidth is the major step #1 in providing your attendees with the best wifi possible.
Infrastructure – the designated tool or router that provides connection to the internet to mobile users
Range is imperative for infrastructure placement. Your “access points” will determine a number of items that may seem more like questions as your event organization is underway. Your infrastructure access points can be a guide in helping answers questions such as:
In terms of next steps when getting these details squared away, there is only one logical place to turn to – support! Whether you are dealing with offsite engineering over the , or an onsite accompaniment that provides day-of support, this relationship is an important one to establish and maintain as the date of your event approaches.
While we’re on the subject of support, let’s consider the possibility of your event experiencing some good old fashioned event wifi failure (keep breathing, everything will be ok)!
The top causes are:
But don’t worry! We’re not here to only deliver the bad news and possibilities at hand. There are a number of solutions available to event planners to help prevent any of these connectivity roadblocks.
Go into your conversation with support knowing exactly what your event is going to need. Use the Event Wifi Bandwidth Calculator from Endless Events. It allows an unlimited number of users, so it works super well for networks with more than 1,000 people. Or let PSAV’s “bandwidth estimator” do the heavy-lifting for you after providing some simple info about your event (guest #, size of event, etc.)
When putting together the layout for your event, it’s important to ask some of the following questions to optimize event wifi connection:
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These discovery questions will prove to be integral to the success of your event when solidifying both an acceptable level of connectivity AND price point. Speaking of price point, let’s get down to some brass tacks.
When deciding on your event Wifi package, you must first determine the product is acceptable before deciding if the price (including free!) is worth it. In order to lock-up the most cost-effective and reliable option available, you’ll need to come to terms with several event details before “having the talk”:
If you can enter into your negotiations with these bullet points at-the-ready, you will be more than prepared. Additionally, there are several crucial answers you should be looking to receive in this meeting from the provider. For example, you need to find out the venue’s bandwidth, infrastructure, and support. And, you should provide the event venue with your meeting’s profile, your internet use needs, and any reporting you might have from previous events about your wifi usage.
Lastly, to make sure you’re staying on track and not missing a beat be sure to collaborate! Working with teammates when selecting an event wi-fi package is always beneficial for outside opinion (and moral support).
Up next, learn more about creating the best event seating plan, and see how to make an event planning check list to set your meeting up for success.
Plus, is the event technology side of things has got you buzzing from this article, why not try out a free tool that can help gather some of those much-needed numbers? Check out an all in one event calculator that can easily double as a day-of best friend.
People are increasingly likely to bring more than one device to an event. In fact, the average works out at two and a half devices per person, so if you’ve got 500 people coming to yours, the WiFi might have to cope with phones, tablets and computers demanding a signal. Different events place different demands on the network, too. At a festival 10% of the crowd typically go online at a time, but at a party or conference, the entire audience might be invited to log on at the same time. Volume of WiFi traffic is a key consideration at the planning stage.
Great WiFi can make a huge difference to your event but we believe it’s something that should be seen and not hears. When start talking about the WiFi it’s usually for all the wrong reasons. Trusting to a venue’s technology capability risks letting poor coverage overshadow your event. Forward planning is vital to ensure the venue’s main areas have a good, strong signal. Even then, most venues will have black spots that make it impossible to roam while online.
It’s useful to understand some of the basic technology of WiFi when thinking about an event’s coverage. The WiFi found in most commercial venues runs on the original 2.4 GHz frequency, but this provides a signal that is often weak, susceptible to interference and increasingly congested.
The new standard is the superior 5 GHz WiFi which is supported by most new smartphones and is better at passing through walls. Event WiFi uses dual band technology – both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz – to deliver a more reliable WiFi experience and our technology is also fully compatible with the latest AC standard.
Restricting the amount of WiFi data is standard practice when putting on a conference, so that heavy use by a few individuals – streaming live video for example – doesn’t affect everyone else.
A quality WiFi connection will allow you to shape and control the traffic to suit your needs while allowing unrestricted access for you and your event team.
Above all, a successful business conference will have a super-fast WiFi connection that can cope with user demand. 10Mb per 100 users is our recommendation for a high usage crowd, while 2Mb per 100 users is standard for smaller events. You can test the internet speed at a venue with websites such at speedtest.net. When you run a test you are looking for a ‘ping speed’ of less that 30ms and an ‘internet speed’ of 2Mb per 100 users, so for 1,000 low usage users (checking emails and social media) 20Mb should be fine.
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