Located in Achterhoek, the eastern region of the Netherlands, Zwarte Cross features a unique mix of motocross, music, stunts, theatre and humour. It has grown immensely from the 1,000 attendees recorded at its 1997 launch. It now boasts 31 stages and spans a distance of 160 hectares (395 acres) across three villages, driving the need for more supporting staff and functions. Indicium B.V., an integrator of wireless LAN and mobile computing technologies, and Extreme Networks will provide this year's extended technology infrastructure.
Extreme Elements™ from the Smart OmniEdge solution, including ExtremeMobility™ access points, ExtremeAnalytics™, ExtremeLocation™ and ExtremeGuest™ applications, will allow Zwarte Cross to ensure safe and reliable network access, while gathering valuable insights about its visitors and their behaviour to realise better visitor experience, staff communication and network service delivery.
Key Benefits
- Extended Wi-Fi access. Last year, over 10,000 festivalgoers connected to the Extreme-powered festival network, with up to 3,200 users concurrently connected. Nearly six terabytes of data were transferred across the public network from the main stage on the second day of the concert alone. This year will see the next evolution in large-scale event networking with more than 280 ExtremeMobility access points deployed across both festival and camping areas.
- Optimum network performance for greater customer experience. With ExtremeGuest, Zwarte Cross can provision network services based on visitor behaviour and preferences. It also guarantees optimum network operation, whilst providing the layer 3 to 7 networking services that are needed between the network at Zwarte Cross and the internet. A Personal Area Network (PAN) provisioned for all guest users will segment/isolate all user traffic from others on the Wi-Fi network to reduce the chance of any cybersecurity threats and improve network efficiency.
- Better insight into application usage and user behaviour. Following a successful trial in 2018, Zwarte Cross will deploy ExtremeAnalytics across its operational and guest network to better understand user behaviour on the network, determine mobile engagement patterns, and guarantee an optimal user experience. Providing valuable insight that can be shared with other parties for marketing activations during and after the festival, the solution can open new potential revenue streams for Zwarte Cross.
- Optimised people flow. Offering powerful location-based insight and trends data such as where visitors and staff are located, how they move across the festival site, and the busiest areas of the environment, the ExtremeLocation application will give festival management the ability to respond to customer needs in real-time based on both real-time and historical location analytics.
