Mid-September marks the end of our summer season. Over the past few months, we’ve been on-site at plenty of locations, and here are a few of them.

Three months at the Plas

Our longest project was the beach bar at the Plas in Houthalen. We installed the network there in mid-June, and it stayed in place until September. Visitors had wifi, and the same setup also ran the cameras and the tills.

After the initial build, we went back a few more times. An extra network was added at the end of June for an event’s ticketing, and in July we adjusted the cashless network. Over three months, all sorts of things change at a location like that, and we adapt the network to match.

Festivals and camp

In July, the festivals followed one another in quick succession. At Release Festival in Borgloon we were on-site for three days, with a permanent presence throughout. A few hundred metres of cable ran across the grounds, and for the first time we also brought along camera surveillance, as a trial. On Friday evening we stayed a bit longer, since a World Cup match was also on the schedule.

A week later we were in Maaseik for an outdoor party. Everything there ran on satellite internet, with a battery as backup power.

The shortest jobs were the concert nights in Braives. We build up in the morning, the network runs the tills in the evening, and at night we tear it down again.

In between, a Starlink stayed for ten days at a youth camp in Verrebroek. In those ten days, more data passed through that single dish than at any festival this summer. At a festival, it’s mainly tills and scanners connected to our network, and they use little data. At a camp, everyone uses it for everything, for ten days straight.

Across the language border

This summer we were also on-site a few times on the other side of the language border, at a 24-hour event near Tournai and for the two concert nights in Braives.

The work itself changes little. The equipment is the same, and the organiser has the same concerns. Only the emails and phone calls are in French. We had translated our site into French in the spring, without expecting much from it. That same summer, projects were already coming in from it.

What we measured

Almost all of these networks were connected to Stardex, the platform we use to monitor our installations remotely. That also lets us add it all up afterwards.

Together, more than 1 TB passed over our networks this summer, with more than 1000 devices connected. Those are payment terminals, scanners and crew devices, and in Houthalen also visitors’ smartphones. Across the completed projects, totalling more than 350 hours, Stardex didn’t measure a single hour where the internet connection dropped out.

For us, those figures are mainly useful for the next quote. We now know what a beach bar uses on a hot day and what a festival with cashless tills needs, and no longer have to estimate it.

What’s still to come

Something is in the works for this autumn that we’re not saying anything about just yet. As soon as we can, you’ll read about it here.

Organising something next year that needs internet, in Flanders or Wallonia? Let us know, and we’ll figure out together what you need.