The fifth largest music festival in the United States hosts some 425,000 visitors over ten days each Spring. Patrons come to hear hundreds of A-list performers on more than a dozen stages, and Festival organizers also host dozens of food, beverage, crafts, and non-profit vendors to support the event.The need was to build a connectivity solution that would reliably deliver high-speed cellular service for operations, vendors, and artists throughout the venue.

As a massive production, the entire event relies on wireless connectivity for everything from ticket scans to ATMs to point-of-sale systems and artist conveniences. In the past, connectivity had been supplied by commercial providers AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

These cellular providers brought in portable cell sites to augment capacity. Still, the public cellular networks were often overwhelmed by traffic from event visitors who shared music, videos, and other types of data over the air. Vendors, artists, and Festival employees often complained of dropped connections or slow service, and sometimes patrons had to wait while connectivity glitches at point-of-sale terminals or ticket scanners were resolved.