Does Starlink work at a festival?

Yes, as long as the dish has a clear view of the sky and isn't the only connection. We use Starlink at almost every event, but always alongside 4G/5G in a single network that switches over automatically. That way the tills keep working if the satellite drops out for a moment.

How much power does a Starlink dish use?

Count on 75 to 100 watts for the standard dish and 110 to 150 watts for the large flat version. On a site without mains power, we include that in the battery or generator capacity, just as we do for the rest of the network.

Can I rent Starlink for my event?

At Astro Rent you don't rent a standalone dish, but a network in which Starlink is one of the connections. We place the dish where it has a clear view, combine it with 4G/5G in the NetBox and monitor everything live.

Why not just use Starlink alone?

Because a single connection is always a single point of failure. Starlink is sensitive to obstacles, heavy rain and cell congestion, and upload speeds often disappoint in practice. With 4G/5G alongside, the other connection takes over immediately and nobody at the till notices a thing.

Starlink for events: what works and what not

Short answer: Starlink is a great connection for events in places without a fixed line, as long as the dish has a clear view of the sky and isn’t on its own. Almost every event we run has one, sometimes several. But always as one of the connections in a network that switches automatically to 4G/5G. This is what a few years of Starlink at festivals, squares and meadows have taught us.

What Starlink does well

Starlink uses low-flying satellites. That keeps latency low enough for payments, video calls and livestreams, something traditional satellite internet never managed. Starlink itself promises 25 to 220 Mbps download, 5 to 20 Mbps upload and 25 to 50 milliseconds of latency; the business Priority plans go higher and give you priority over regular users in the same cell.

In practice, on an open site we easily see more than 100 Mbps download. For a meadow without cables or a village square where the mobile network is full on a Saturday night, that is a connection you can build on.

Where Starlink falls short

These are the six points that keep showing up in our monitoring:

Obstacles. The dish wants a clear view all around, from about twenty degrees above the horizon. A tree, a tent or a stage tower in the wrong direction means short interruptions, several times an hour. That same stage tower is, incidentally, an excellent place to mount the dish.
Cell congestion. Several dishes close together share the same capacity. Six dishes on one square without a plan gives you six slow connections.
Upload. A festival crowd uploads more than it downloads. A 15 Mbps livestream plus two hundred visitors sharing videos won’t fit into an upload that in practice fluctuates between 5 and 20 Mbps, and sometimes lower.
Weather. Heavy rain and wet snow reduce throughput and cause short dropouts. Not often, but at the worst possible moment.
No public IP address. By default, Starlink sits behind a shared address. Reaching your cameras or equipment on site from outside requires a Priority plan, and even then the address changes.
Power. 75 to 100 watts for the standard dish, 110 to 150 watts for the large flat version. On a meadow without mains power, that’s a line item in the energy planning.

None of these points makes Starlink unsuitable. They do make it clear why a dish alone is not an event network.

How we use Starlink

Multiple connections in one gateway. Starlink plus 4G/5G from different operators and, where available, a fixed line come together in the NetBox. If one connection drops, another takes over within a second. Nobody at the till notices.
Sensitive traffic over the most stable route. Payments, scanning and production get priority and run over the connection performing best at that moment. The public WiFi gets what’s left.
Placement with a clear view. On a mast, a container or a stage tower. We check the obstruction map before the build, not after.
Distance between dishes. At the Pukema festival in Puurs, six Starlink dishes ran at six locations in the town centre, each with its own network, so they didn’t get in each other’s way.
Live monitoring. Through Stardex we see throughput, latency and interruptions per connection. If Starlink drops, we see it before the organiser notices.

That’s how we did it at Nacht der Nachten in Hoeselt too, where the satellite link carried ticket scanning and cashless payments, and at dozens of other events since 2022.

When is Starlink the main connection?

On remote sites without a fixed line and with weak or overloaded mobile coverage.
At multi-day events where a temporary fibre line doesn’t pay off against the duration.
As a backup alongside a fixed line at the venue, as at Unicorn Festival, where the venue itself provided internet.

And when isn’t it? As the only connection for payments or a livestream. We don’t do that, however well the dish performs on test day.

What to tell us

If you’re organising something at a site without a fixed line, state in your quote request whether there is mains power, whether there are tall obstacles (trees, buildings, tents, stage towers) and which processes absolutely cannot go down. We then decide whether Starlink becomes the main connection, the backup, or both, and how many dishes the site can handle.