The AEO, AEV and ESSA have released some provisional guidelines to ensure effective Wi-Fi can be provided at events. The guidelines have been included in their eGuide which brings together guidance for achieving common standards of health, safety and operational planning, management and on-site conduct for events at all participating AEV member venues. Now recognised as the industry’s best practice document, the eGuide is continually reviewed by working industry professionals who represent the best advice currently available, and who themselves have to work within the guidelines in their own professional capacities.

The Wi-Fi Connectivity Guide provides a general overview to help organisers, venues and contractors understand the key issues and challenges of implementing effective Wi-Fi solutions at an event. The eGuide lists the technologies that are likely to interfere with a Wi-Fi network. It also gives a useful checklist for organisers of key considerations to discuss with their venue and exhibitors when planning the level of connectivity required for an event.

Provision of effective Wi-Fi remains at the top of the head-ache list for many event organisers. The high density and complex live event environment generally requires advanced planning with experienced partners to avoid congestion and connectivity problems.

One of the main challenges involved in the provision of Wi-Fi within a live event environment is that networks not specifically designed to serve large numbers of modern devices will not generally be powerful enough. Also a hindrance is the impact of competing “rogue” Wi-Fi networks set up unofficially by exhibitors and other event participants which can cause interference and impede performance.

With the appropriate planning, communication and expectation setting, the guide states that thousands of people can connect to 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi networks. Early planning is strongly recommended and encouraged by venues, many of whom offer discounts for early orders. This allows any potential issues to be discussed and worked through rather than encountering problems during the event.

The guide provides a list of questions that should be discussed with the venue including: What areas of the venue have WiFi provision? Is the WiFi provision free of charge? What is the maximum number of concurrent users the system allows for?

It also provides a list of questions to ask exhibitors, including: How many devices are you intending to connect to the network? What levels of data transfer do you anticipate? How many concurrent users do you expect?

The detailed provision of guidelines relating to Wi-Fi connectivity at events will likely be a huge help to venues and event and exhibition organisers. You can access the full details of the guide here: www.aev.org.uk/files/connectivity12.pdf

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