The network had been running overnight. Friday morning was quiet on site — final checks, team in position, support desk open. The infrastructure was ready. The question is always whether it holds when people actually arrive.
10am is that moment. Gates open, and within minutes every ticketing scanner across the site is active simultaneously. Hundreds of people queuing, wristbands being scanned, access control running. That's the first real load the network sees — and it's fairly unforgiving, because if ticketing fails at gate open the queue backs up fast.
It held. Ticketing ran cleanly from the start.
The Network Across the Site
The dashboard screenshot below is from Friday morning with the festival live. Every access point across the site reporting connected — ticketing, camping, the arenas, main bar, welfare, medic, accreditation, the school field, the gate.
The AP names give a sense of the coverage required: AP10-Ticketing, AP13-Arena-2-2, AP08-Camping, AP32-medic, AP04-Main Bar 2, AP25-Deershed-Gate, AP28-accreditation, AP21-welfare, AP23-school-outside. Each one a separate zone with its own coverage requirements, all running back to the infrastructure built over the previous four days.
Arena 1 — Before the Crowds
These shots were taken Friday morning before the arena filled. The main stage is ready, the butterfly rig is up, the field in front of it is empty.
We will come back to this view later in the weekend when it looks rather different.
The next significant load spike is expected around 3pm as the site fills and the food and bar vendors get busy — every card payment, every order, all running across the same network. We will update on that in the wrap-up post after the weekend.
Full wrap-up with numbers and lessons learned to follow after the festival closes. High Tide Group · hightidegroup.net · 01429 818332