This week High Tide Group are on site at Deershed Festival, building the complete WiFi and communications network for the event. We'll be posting a daily update through the build.
The day started before we left Hartlepool — a live client issue that needed sorting before anyone got in a van. That's fairly normal; managed IT doesn't stop because you've got somewhere to be. It got resolved, and we headed out.
Day 1 — Getting Base Comms Up
First job on any event build is the same: get the crew talking to each other. Everything else — arenas, bars, ticketing, welfare — comes later. Before any of that, the people doing the work need connectivity.
Today that meant getting the HTG WiFi cabin craned into position on the estate, raising the first masts, and getting internet live to the cabin itself, the production office, and artist liaison. That's it for Day 1. Deliberately limited scope.
Nathan was up the ladder in the sunshine getting the first point-to-point links and access points mounted. Sun hat was the right call.
By end of day base comms were live. The site around us was still mostly empty — fencing going up, the odd marquee appearing, the Deershed stage structure visible across the field.
A Note on This Week's Setup
From Tuesday, the full HTG team joins on site — and the entire HTG managed services and NOC operation relocates with them. No staff remain in the Hartlepool office for the week. Every client ticket, every support call, every monitoring alert is handled from the festival site.
We do this deliberately. It's our annual live validation of our business continuity plan — not a desktop exercise, but an actual operational move under real conditions. More on that in tomorrow's update.
Follow the build diary all week on the High Tide Group blog, LinkedIn, and Facebook.