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Heidi Williams: How is the events industry managing the Wi-Fi debate?
5th July 2012
Overpriced Wi-Fi drives organisers to seek their own solutions. But does this really solve the problem?
Event management agency Connect Events recently released a blog post lamenting the extortionate cost of Wi-Fi at venues, noting that, particularly on IT-associated events, it is taken for granted that internet will be provided free of charge and to not provide this service as an organiser is not really an option.
They came up with their own solution – they purchased individual 'Mi-Fi' devices which they now own for future events, to the tune of around £2000 per year. Given that a single connection at a venue can be upwards of £500, this clearly has the potential to be a real money saver. The original blog post is here.
However, the device relies on a good signal and clearly comes with no support or back-up services, so if exhibitors are having trouble with their connection there is no-one to call. They reasoned that despite this it's still worth their while – venue Wi-Fi connections are not always reliable, they retain the ability to provide basic web browsing free of charge and they save costs.
With the need for internet becoming ever more crucial (people moving homes now make setting up their broadband a higher priority than sorting out their water, gas and electricity) and, outside of big venues, ever more freely available, the drive continues toward free internet access – at least at a basic browsing level – for all events and venues.
The reality is, of course, that there are substantial costs in supporting a broadband network. The bandwidth can't just be turned up and down to cater for the number of users, so the costs to the venue of providing and servicing that connection is high.
But these high costs drive organisers – and indeed exhibitors – to find work-around solutions. If you've got the technical know-how, why wouldn't you? In some venues, this exacerbates the problem as a single connection is ordered, but then used as a hub to create multiple connections. This means the venue has a higher bandwidth requirement than expected, affecting the service for other users.
Exhibition News wrote a good feature on this last November here which talks about why venue internet connections struggle to cope with the demand placed on them, noting that the level of demand placed on connections at exhibitions is incomparable to the demands on high street coffee shops or shopping malls. It's pointed out that exhibitors' own solutions make a bad situation worse. For many larger venues, the cost of improving infrastructure is high, so the question remains, how is this cost going to be met?
There has been talk of establishing a working party that will explore potential solutions. ABPCO has created a Cloud campaign championing free Wi-Fi. But several months on, where have we got to? What solutions are being considered by venues, organisers and Wi-Fi providers?
We'd love to hear your views and comments on the question of paying for and providing Wi-Fi at venues. And if you are driving the solutions as well as the debate, get in touch!
Comments
Great blog post Heidi and a
Great blog post Heidi and a reminder of what an important issue wifi (and technology more widely) is becoming in event planning.
As providers of large scale interactive solutions in events, often using venue internet, we have had a wide range of experiences: from excellent to terrible. The key question is: what is the wifi/ internet being provided for? If it's to support delegates/ visitors in doing their personal email then it shouldn't necessarily use up event owners' budgets. However, if it's mission critical (e.g. broadcasting the event to a wider audience), or being used for live demos or supporting the connectivity for event apps, then it would be unwise to rely on a "free" service. But even once an event manager has resolved to pay for the internet, it's not always clear what they are buying and venues frequently don't know what they are selling. In a future blog I will be talking about the difficult questions to ask a venue to ensure you don't get let down onsite. Watch this space!
Heidi
Heidi
It's worth mentioning that a Working Party, run by ESSA and formed of representatives from organisers, venues and contractors, has been running for sometime now and has made quite a lot of progress.
Have a look at this blog http://bit.ly/PzbdDV from Tom McInerney of Etherlive who gives a very good summary of the issues and some of the outcomes from the Working Party.
Although for me the question of "free wifi" is just one element of a wider issue, I think it would be good to get ABPCO's opinions on the subject, as well as other associations.
A very succinct appraisal of
A very succinct appraisal of an increasingly common problem Heidi. You make the key points very well.
As Chris alludes to though there are two sides to this;
1. The wi-fi that delegates increasingly expect and demand.
2. The high quality connection that both Chris's and my company need in order to provide our services to our clients. (In our case this is streaming a conference or event live over the web and to mobile devices.)
All too often it seems venues are unable to provide the separate services at an adequate level of bandwidth or reliability, meaning alternative arrangements have to be made, sometimes at significant additional cost to the organiser / client.
Unfortunately I think this is a problem that will remain for the next 2-3 years (longer in some locations) until the general quality and speed of connections improve. In the longer term it is my opinion that multiple high speed connections should be a standard part of the venue rental contract as air conditioning or heating is today. Fortunately some venues are already starting to provide 100Mb/s+ connections that are generally more than adequate for all current needs - let's hope many more join them.
I beleive we are making
I beleive we are making inroads. The ABPCO Conference Cloud will be celebtrating its 1st anniversary in August and one year on we have over 200 conference sites in the UK signed up and offering free WIFI for delegates. Of significance too is the fact that the larger convention centres are now starting to join the party. The Brighton Centre, for example, included a free WIFI infrastucture in its recent refurb. I am sure they will be one of many major venues accross the country following the lead from other destinations world wide, doing so in order to compete in attracting confernce business.
There is no doubt that organisers and exhibitors wanting to use venue infrastructure to run bespoke applications will have challenges. Venues should not be obligated to provide unlimited bandwidth to organisers and comapnies but certainly attending delegates should have the ability to continue their day to day communications with an acceptable level of free WIFI. Delegates at conferences expect this like they do electricity and toilet paper and we find clients now demanding free WIFI as a prerequisite when choosing a venue or even an hotel.
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