Access All Areas September 2020 | Page 46

SEPTEMBER | SECTOR FOCUS SPONSORED BY: Before the virus, a typical day would usually be on site, troubleshooting and monitoring connections to make sure events can run smoothly. Event WiFi’s Rob Watson walks us through a typical day, pre-Covid: “Our engineers are split into two teams: Cable engineers and Network engineers. The Network engineers spend their time on site configuring the access points, switches and routers while the cable team run cat5 and fibre cables around the site to ensure everything is connected. “They are no strangers to working 8am-8pm, crawling under marquees or up in a cherry picker. During a show, our engineers are constantly monitoring the performance of the network to optimise the quality of the WiFi and they are always on stand-by to troubleshoot issues that may occur.” Noba Event WiFi’s Nick Taylor points to how things have changed: “Pre-Covid we were delivering up to 10 events on a single day. Now most work we have been involved in has been virtual/hybrid so there is less of a need for a physical onsite staff presence.” While a typical day looks very different now than it did six months ago for the event WiFi sector, these companies have proven resilient in the face of massive upheaval. And with new technologies over the horizon, there might just be some positive signs to look forward to. “We have expanded our virtual offering to cater for demand, and actually increased our staff numbers this year.” 46 ATTEND2IT.CO.UK | 01763 877 477