Christmas is a busy time of year for everyone, including event planners. With Christmas markets, fates, fairs, light trails, Santa Grottos and all sorts of other Christmas events popping up across the UK for the festive period.
If COVID has taught us anything, it’s that card payments are king in a market or event environment. Very few people choose to carry cash, and that means that most vendors require a stable and secure WiFi connection for their card machines and POS systems.
In this article, we’ll explore a couple of options available for your Christmas event, to help you find the best WiFi solution for you and your vendors.
Plug and Play WiFi For a Christmas Market or Event
One of the simplest, and most popular WiFi solutions for Christmas event is our temporary, portable WiFi boxes. These boxes provide business-grade WiFi to your Christmas event, and up to 200m of coverage.
We deploy our boxes all across the UK over the festive period. Many Christmas events take advantage of our reliable WiFi solution, particularly for vendors card machines and POS systems.
With reliable connectivity in place at your Christmas event, you can keep vendors happy, keep payments coming in, and offer a modern and efficient experience to your guests.
We provided our portable WiFi solutions to events all across the UK over the Christmas period, including Light Up Bristol, a Christmas Lights Trail in Ashton Court, which was a roaring success; seeing thousands of visitors across the festive period.
Benefits of Plug & Play WiFi
- Cost effective setup
- High-end hardware and business-grade equipment
- Large WiFi range from each box (up to 200m)
- Support for hundreds of clients
- No engineer or installation cost
Event-Wide WiFi For a Christmas Market or Event
A second option for Christmas events, is a larger, site-wide engineer-installed WiFi solution. Usually, this is more popular with larger events, who expect higher footfall and require the most robust WiFi solution possible.
With event-wide WiFi, there are a couple of options, both of which are popular with Christmas events…
Satellite
Using a Starlink Satellite, we can provide your Christmas market or event with reliable WiFi connectivity—keeping the vendors and staff connected, no matter where you are in the country.
Usually, a satellite solution is deployed at larger events, with higher footfall and more bandwidth requirements. Often this connectivity is provided to vendors at a fee, which allows the event organisers to generate additional revenue.
Before your event, our expert technical team will put together custom heat-maps, which show the coverage you’ll receive. This helps to ensure maximum WiFi coverage for your vendors, PDQ machines and staff—and allows you to visualise your network prior to installation.
Our satellite solutions are remotely monitored and supported by our in-house network team to ensure a smooth running of your event.
Point-to-Point
Another solution that some Christmas events make use of is point-to-point. Using enterprise-level technology, our team can beam internet across to your event site using a microwave link from a nearby fibre location.
Usually, this solution is reserved for events that are taking place in the grounds of a venue, or where the venue allows access to fibre broadband nearby.
Using point-to-point provides the fastest and best form of WiFi connectivity, it’s the most reliable and fastest, but also the most expensive. Often, we see larger Christmas events that utilise Point-to-Point providing the guests with an open public network that captures their guest data, and generate additional revenue with marketing once the event is complete.
What is the Best WiFi Solution For my Christmas Event?
The best WiFi solution for your Christmas event depends on a few factors. But here is a rough breakdown:
If you’re planning a Christmas event, here are some questions you should ask yourself before choosing an event WiFi solution:
- How many people will be using WiFi at my event?
- What is the size of the area that requires WiFi coverage?
- How much reliance will I have on my WiFi?
- What will the devices be using the network for (will it be card payments for example)?
- How many people will be attending the event?
If you’d like some help deciding which WIFi solution is best for your Christmas event, give our team a call on 03331 301 021, or ping an email with your event details to sales@bytesdigital.co.uk, and one of our technical team will be able to take a look and suggest the best option for you—no obligations, no commitments.
