As we’re all getting back into the hustle and bustle of normal life and reflecting on the highs of last summer, we just wanted to share the time that we had an additional 25,000 visitors into our office.

The Green Man Festival has grown from 300 people at its inception in 2003 up to 25,000 at last year’s event in 2021. In those 18 years, everyone’s expectations on connectivity have also increased by a similar degree. The festival is now the largest independent festival in the UK and a major source of income to the mid Wales region as well as being a firm favourite on many people’s calendar each year.

As a result of the Covid epidemic, last year’s festival was very different to any other year and was one of the first to be held in Wales under guidance only produced during the planning phase. Ensuring a smooth flow of people across all locations where people congregated was key to minimising spread of infection. To ensure this, one of the decisions that was made was to make all of the bars and ticket office cashless. This in turn led to the festival’s need for a fault tolerant connection to the internet.

As the festival site at the Glanusk Estate is also the home of Beacons Telecom, one of Wales’ fastest growing broadband ISP’s, the festival organisers approached Beacons Telecom to design and supply the internet connectivity.

It was agreed that a temporary fibre solution could be put in place using the festoon lighting to carry the fibre cable, backed up by a Fixed Wireless network in the event of failover. Each network was terminated at different points on the Beacons Telecom network ensuring no single point of failure on the network.

The Green Man Festival sees a huge influx of visitors into the area and places a huge strain on the local 4G network. Over the past few years, this has led to problems rendering the 4G networks close to useless for the time of the festival. 

Thanks to Beacons Telecom, festival goers had an uninterrupted supply of food and drink alongside reliable access to the internet.

We are very much looking forward to this years summer and being back at Green Man Festival once again!