The British summer. Festival season. Seas of swirling people, vast fields packed with tents, long hikes to the loos and multiple bands on multiple stages. A logistics exercise requiring coordination and efficiency, and that’s just for the audience!
Vital communications for festival organisers
If you’re running a festival, security and first aid teams require reliable communications to be able to respond to incidents promptly, while stewards and stage hands need to be able to keep operations running smoothly, whether handling audience members or bands and their support staff. Given the area over which some festivals can sprawl, unlicensed radios or walkie talkies, may not cut it, and the security of private frequency with designated channels for different teams reducing confusion, interference and unnecessary chatter is likely to be of great help. For larger festivals, a base operator with dispatcher software coordinating GPS tracked radios might not sound overly extravagant!
Hire options available
Of course, two-way radios needn’t be purchased to provide their benefit, with many organisations choosing to hire radios for the short period needed, reducing storage space required between events and could prove cost effective.
Not just for festival organisers…
So, what if you’re not running the festival? You’ve got your tickets, you’ve got your friends, you’ve got your tent, and you’ve got a list of must-see bands you absolutely cannot afford to miss. Unfortunately, it may be that your friends would rather go and see another band while you’re watching your favourite, and once you split up in that ocean of humanity, you’ll be lucky to find each other again without some serious planning. Once again, two-way radios can be your friend. Let friends know that you’re running late meeting them at the appointed location meeting place because the queue for the portaloos was longer than expected, call ahead to take food orders, or just check in to see where they are at the moment. It’s likely that secure conversations and great range will be less critical to you than the organisers, so licence-free radios are likely to suffice, but for that extra bit of range, licensed radios needn’t break the bank, and can prove useful in plenty of other scenarios where you and your friends want to communicate over distance.
If you need advice on radio communication for your festival this year, or in the future years, please contact our team.