Thursday was the final build day. Arena 1 still needed completing, and everything needed commissioning end-to-end before the gates open Friday morning.
We started early. The heat earlier in the week had made working at height uncomfortable by mid-morning, so getting the remaining cable runs and AP installations done before the temperature peaked was the priority. Arena 1 was signed off by mid-morning.
Commissioning — Section by Section
One thing that doesn't get mentioned much when people talk about event network builds is that you don't just switch everything on at once. On a site like Deershed, permanent power reaches different areas at different times as the electrical team work through their own installation. Thursday is the day that all comes together — but it happens progressively, not all at once.
Throughout the day we worked closely with the electrical team, coordinating which sections were ready to take power and bringing each zone of the network up in sequence as permanent supply reached it. Ticketing, the arenas, the bars, welfare, medic, camping, the gate — each one tested and confirmed as power landed, rather than a single end-of-day switch-on.
It's a slower process than it might look from the outside, but it's the right way to do it. You find out quickly if something isn't right in a zone when you bring it up in isolation, before the rest of the site is depending on it.
It wasn't until late Thursday evening that the whole site had permanent power and the full network could be confirmed end-to-end. By that point every access point was up, every zone was responding, and the management dashboard was showing green across the board.
End of Day
Once commissioning was wrapped the team stopped for the first time all week. Pizza, camping chairs outside the WiFi cabin, job done. The network sits idle overnight — the real load doesn't come until Friday when the public arrive and ticketing, bar systems, welfare, and accreditation all start hitting it simultaneously.
The Stage Pre-Check
The stage lighting crew were on site in the evening running their own pre-checks — independent of the network at this point, but it was hard not to stop and watch. By this stage of the build the Deershed main stage looks seriously impressive. The full butterfly lighting rig was illuminated, moving heads were tracking across the stage, haze filling the air, and the whole setup sitting against the darkening North Yorkshire sky.
It's a good reminder of what all the cable runs and mast installations are actually for. When it's all working — the network invisible, the stage spectacular, the site ready — that's the point.
Build complete. Gates open tomorrow.
Day 5 — go-live — on the blog. High Tide Group · hightidegroup.net · 01429 818332