We’re super excited to be exhibiting this year at The Showman’s Show – The Outdoor Event Services Exhibition for the first time!
We’ll be discussing outdoor event networks “done right”, and some of our latest innovations around observability and operational infrastructure monitoring. Come and find us on Stand 279 to discuss more!
We have moved!
After a herculean effort this past three weeks, we are now all moved into our new warehouse unit in Cheltenham. You can now find us at:
Unit 11E, Alstone Lane Trading Estate
Alstone Lane
Cheltenham
GL51 8HF
We now have more than 4x the storage space (fully refurbished in-house), improved travel connections and parking facilities, and energy independence plans in the pipeline; allowing us to continue our growth and keep the back-of-house operation that powers our great on-site services running smoothly.
“We’ve never had anything this great before”
Exactly the client feedback we are looking for when taking on a new event site for the first time.
We’ve had a great week in a very sunny Brighton working with old friends and new to deliver the largest site at Brighton Fringe. At this temporary festival and arts venue we’ve provided:
Thanks to our team for all their hard work, and to the other suppliers on site for making us so welcome 🙌
Welcoming the latest addition to the fleet, our first all-electric van from Listers Volkswagen, coming to a festival site near you soon 🎪 📡
Sustainability isn’t just a tick box for us, we’re committed to reducing our impact on the environment and growing the company in a sustainable way 🌱
Working with A Greener Future, we undertook comprehensive carbon tracking of all our scope 1, 2 & 3 emissions last year, and commissioned a sustainability diagnosis to better understand how we can improve.
One of the first things we identified is a large number of trips which could have been replaced by an EV. After a trial last year at fellow AGF-member Greenbelt Festival, this year we’ve added our brand new eTransporter to the fleet permanently.
But this isn’t even the biggest thing we’ve invested in for this season, more to come soon…
As we continue to grow, we’re looking to expand our pool of freelance and contract workers for the busy summer events season ahead. Our team is at the heart of everything we do; we pride ourselves on working with some of the best out there, and want to help develop new talent for the industry too.
What we’re looking for:
🛜 Networking, IT & Data Cabling (Fibre & Copper) Engineers
🛠️ Multi-skilled and hands-on approach to work
🎪 Ability to travel & work away at event sites around the UK
🌦️ Willingness to work outdoors in the great British weather
📋 We’re open to a range of skill sets and experience levels
What we can offer:
🚧 Regular work on well-managed and varied event sites
🦾 Supportive project community with a strong focus on team welfare
🖥️ Modern, professional and well maintained equipment & infrastructure
👨🏫 On-the-job training and progression opportunities
💷 Competitive rates
To work with us, you must be 18+ and have the right to work in the UK. Bonus points for those in some of our busiest locations, including Brighton, London & Bristol, or close to our base in Cheltenham; and those with relevant plant operator licences including IPAF & Telehandler.
If this sounds interesting, drop us an e-mail at ops@nvents.co
Rain or shine the work continues maintaining some of our permanent infrastructure across various festival sites. Responding to a callout about some damage today: caused by the storms or the rogue sheep, who’s to say? 🐑 ⛈️
Helping outdoor event sites invest in permanent infrastructure not only streamlines our installation, it can be much more resilient than temporary cabling and offer significant savings to the event over its lifetime.
On an event last summer, we watched with curiosity as Event Control had to keep radioing through to other departments asking for the wind speeds. Why? Because the anemometer supplied didn’t have enough range to reach from the main stage to the control room. Turns out its a common problem.
Surely there had to be a better way than manually logging this data?
So new to our stock this year is our network-based weather station… Integrating straight into our existing advanced network monitoring system, we can now log wind speed and other environmental sensors, create bespoke dashboards not only accessible from Event Control but from any device on or offsite via the internet. Combined with available web APIs, we can even pull in forecast data and lightning into the same dashboard.
We can also create custom automatic alerts by email or SMS when trigger conditions are met in line with wind action plans, notifying your site or safety teams straight away.
A bit easier than asking over the radio every 15 minutes.
We’re back at base and the sun is out; so what better time to be checking over our latest delivery of brand new custom flightcases from our friends at 5 Star Cases ☀️
With plenty of growth and exciting plans for the busy summer outdoor events season, continuing to invest in our equipment and rental inventory is how we stay ahead.
When Starlink launched it quickly became a game-changer for outdoor events. All of a sudden you could get reliable 100Mbps+ download speeds at low latency nearly anywhere. It didn’t take a professional to install, and it was cheap enough (assuming you potentially misused the ‘residential’ tier) that anyone could have one.
In outdoor events we saw firstly the event Wi-Fi providers starting to use it for the whole site’s internet connectivity, but then contractors, bar companies, traders, funfair rides and even the general public starting to bring them to event sites, all wanting their share of this high speed internet service.
However, as this popularity has rapidly spread, performance has significantly deteriorated. Particularly in ‘congested’ areas and despite trying to address this with launching newer dish models, High Performance hardware and Priority plans. Fundamentally we are starting to reach the capacity limits of the system.
Information about Starlink capacity and performance is not widely published, and is highly complex, but we can estimate that the theoretical maximum download capacity of a spot beam (or cell) is around 700Mbps, and each spot beam covers an hexagonal area on the ground approximately 15miles across. 700Mbps does not go far when each dish on the ground has the capability to download at over 100Mbps. Of course not every dish will be utilising all of that capacity at once, but we can see now why a large festival site with 100 dishes on site are now not getting anywhere near the advertised speeds (not allowing of course for any others in the same geographical area).
The problem is allocation of service, a concession unit for example with two EPOS devices doesn’t need 100Mbps; but the main stage video team desperately trying to download new last-minute content for the imags does; if they both have their own Starlink we have no way to prioritise these two flows (although, one of those users is actually more business critical than the other despite needing less), and actually a new version of iOS downloading in the background on the EPOS devices is taking all the capacity slowing down both the card payments and the video team.
So, we can try and still use Starlink but back to a traditional model – the Wi-Fi provider brings a couple of High Performance Starlink dishes, and distributes that service across site and manages traffic prioritisation. The problem is this model costs more, and you’ve got to stop all those other stakeholders from using their own Starlinks. If you’ve got Live-ins on site, that could be near impossible, and of course you’ve also got to consider other people outside the event but within the same spot beam area.
Or, we have to accept that Starlink isn’t a viable option anymore, and go back to the more expensive alternatives?
Long live Tooway?
With one last show down in Brighton, that’s finally a wrap on UK festival season 2024 👏
But this summer has been a bit different for me; quietly I’ve been working on something new and a bit scary.
For three years now I’ve worked as a connectivity consultant across a number of major outdoor events. I help organisers manage their IT, networking and CCTV requirements; an area which in the past few years has become more critical than ever before to the success of these events. I work with most of the major suppliers in the sector to try and ensure we are getting the right solution for each show.
What I’ve come to realise was that despite there being so many great suppliers out there now, there was still a gap in the market for someone to try and do the impossible on some of these shows – provide a high level of service and quality of installation, with robust and enterprise grade solutions, and at a reasonable price point. (Otherwise known as the triple constraint of Good, Fast and Cheap?).
The solution? Put my money where my mouth is and start providing these services as a supplier myself…
Thankfully quite a few organisers including U-Live and Superstruct Entertainment shared my philosophy, and trusted me to work with them in this new capacity, supplying a full turnkey solution for their shows.
Starting a new business, investing in equipment, worrying about staffing and logistics, warehousing, procurement, none of that was on my 2024 bingo card. Its been a wild, sometimes scary and stressful ride, however with the support of a great team of freelancers, suppliers and partners its been an amazing summer with all targets and expectations smashed.
All that remains is to finish clearing up the mud….