Connectivity as a crucial factor at the festival site

Rampage Open AirNew window is the largest drum-and-bass and dubstep festival in Europe. Last year, the four-day event drew 66,000 visitors to Kristalpark in Lommel. With over 40% of those visitors coming from abroad, the event also has international appeal. In addition to music, there are plenty of opportunities for a full-scale experience, including a carnival, a skate park, and an arcade.

Wim Verreyken, Risk & Crowd Manager at Rampage

Open field among wind turbines

The festival, which started out as a one-day event, has grown year after year. That expansion has brought with it new challenges. Co-organizer Tom Stoop explains: “For example, at first we were still using traditional printed drink vouchers. Year after year, we’ve taken significant steps in digitalization to make the festival more appealing, safe, and streamlined.”

Wim Verreyken, who supports the event as a freelancer, points out how challenging the setting is. “Kristalpark is located among the wind turbines near the Dutch and German border, so when it comes to basic network services, there’s not much to fall back on. But once a year, tens of thousands of festivalgoers descend on the area, eager to livestream en masse. At the same time, you need to ensure emergency communications and facilities such as cashless payments remain operational.”

Cell on Wheels

For Kris Van Cauwenbergh, a 5G expert at Proximus NXT, this is familiar territory. “In and around cities there are lots of large-scale cell towers and antennae. At more remote festival grounds, that’s often not the case. In addition, the wind turbines interfere with the network signals.”

To meet festival organizers’ temporary needs, Proximus NXT deploys mobile cell towers. “A Cell on Wheels (or CoW for short) is mounted on a semi-trailer and contains several antennae to increase network capacity on site.” Because an optimal network experience is important to our average Proximus user, Proximus provides such a CoW at a number of events, in order to meet the high connectivity demands of the general public.

However, that’s not the end of the story. “Because when thousands of visitors upload photos and videos at the same time, there’s still a risk of network saturation, even with multiple CoWs. That’s why it’s important to establish network traffic priorities for different applications.”

Tom Stoop explains: “Emergency communications with the police and fire service must always come first. In addition, you don’t want your payment system to go down, because when visitors can no longer pay there are very serious consequences, both practically and financially. Together with Proximus NXT, we’ve identified the most critical data flows.”

Kris Van Cauwenbergh, 5G MPN Business Development Manager at Proximus NXT

Priority network traffic

Event Reservation is the perfect solution. “You reserve part of the network capacity for critical applications,” explains Kris Van Cauwenbergh. In a setting like that of Rampage Open Air, Event Reservation takes on an extra dimension. “Via a CoW, we provide additional 2G, 4G, and 5G connectivity. However, many applications, such as cashless payment terminals, still run on 4G. This means you can allocate part of the public 4G network bandwidth exclusively to the most critical applications, regardless of whether this is done via a CoW or the generally available public network.

The two solutions function as one large ‘connectivity cloud’, on which Event Reservation is built. This way, there’s no need to set up a separate, private network. All traffic is routed through Proximus’s public connectivity, with priority over general public traffic. So Event Reservation is also possible without an extra CoW.”

As well as the outdoor festival, Rampage also organized an indoor party at the Antwerp AFAS Dome in March. Wim Verreyken highlights the significant differences in terms of connectivity. “The AFAS Dome is located in an urban setting with better network coverage. In addition, you can rely on years of testing, based on numerous events. Unlike a festival site, an indoor venue offers more time and space to make optimizations in advance.”

Tom Stoop, co-organizer of Rampage Open Air

Seamless networking experience

Because of this, for Tom Stoop the network partner’s contribution to outdoor festivals is essential. “As the organizer, what you expect from a network operator first and foremost is a high-quality, fast, and reliable network. In addition, you need experts who understand the challenges you face. They must be familiar with the dynamics of a festival site and be able to respond appropriately. Proximus NXT and Kris’s team meet those requirements, which makes them very easy to work with.”

Data use at festivals increases every year. “I don’t expect visitors to start leaving their smartphones at home, so we have to be prepared for ever-greater network demands. We’ve always managed to do this. The fact that visitors don’t mention poor connectivity in their feedback is the best proof. Because in my view a network is functioning optimally when festivalgoers don’t give it a second thought.”

A future for integration

Finally, Wim Verreyken shares his view on the future of festival connectivity. “I expect to see further integration of different systems. Currently, drink and ticket apps still operate independently of one another. I also see potential for real-time crowd management, where visitors can use the festival app to monitor how crowded the food and drink stands are. But the more technology you use, the less you want visitors to feel dependent on it. A streamlined experience is key. We want to continue working on that together.”