News
A California music festival played host to a success story for the Wireless Broadband Alliance after their OpenRoaming network was implemented by a global live event production firm.
By: Brad Randall, Broadband Communities
Implementation of a Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) OpenRoamning network led to both increased traffic and enhanced engagement with attendees at this year’s BottleRock Napa Valley Music Festival.
The festival, which drew around 120,000 attendees over three days in May, experiences approximately 45,000 visitors on-site at any given time, according to the WBA’s announcement.
At the event, produced by Clair Global, concurrent OpenRoaming network connections peaked at 23,000, representing over 50 percent of visitors at that time.
In the months since, Clair Global has also implemented an OpenRoaming network at Hotel Rock Lititz in Pennsylvania.
The hotel is part of a “one-of-a-kind production community that supports innovative creativity within the live event industry” within Rock Lititz’s 96-acre campus, according to the Oct. 2 announcement.
“For Clair Global, OpenRoaming has not just meant better connectivity for guests and improved customer experience for events,” the release stated. “Network reliability also supported enhanced operations for event organizers and vendors, particularly in areas such as digital payments and service delivery, where efficiency was improved.”
Matthew Clair, the EVP of business operations at Clair Global, said OpenRoaming has significantly improved the connectivity experience Clair Global’s events.
“This has led to a better overall customer experience, with attendees enjoying uninterrupted connectivity,” Clair said. “Feedback from festival owners has been overwhelmingly positive, highlighting enhanced user experiences and increased attendee engagement.”
According to the announcement, the implementation of OpenRoaming at BottleRock Napa Valley was built using Cisco Spaces.
At the music festival, data usage reached 33 terabytes, representing an increase of 36 percent since the addition of OpenRoaming.
“This enables the network to automatically authenticate users, apply the relevant policies and service level agreement relevant to their identity and network provider contract,” the announcement explained.
Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of the Wireless Broadband Alliance, said OpenRoaming’s successes at Clair Global demonstrate its true business value.
“WBA OpenRoaming removes the barriers to getting online, improving user engagement, satisfaction, business efficiency and revenue opportunities, particularly for high density scenarios, such as venues and events,” Rodrigues said. “As a federated and secure solution, that authenticates all users, it enables businesses and visitors to get on with enjoying a frictionless experience.”
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