Festival Backbone Network
While music and art come alive at the festival, we took care of making its data-world come alive as well. Our previous experience at festivals such as Rock for People, Metronome and Sázavafest has placed us in a position where our partner T‑Mobile approached us to build a bullet-proof data backbone for Colours of Ostrava.
The area of the Lower Vítkovice District is a technical monument, which means limited possibilities for construction and installation interventions. On top of that we had very little time for preparation. T-Mobile provided the connectivity for the entire area; our task was to distribute it to every important location - from the main stages and sound-stations, through artist back-stages, VIP zones, to the media center and production technical back-office. The requirement was clear: maximal availability and zero tolerance for downtime. Any problem would immediately jeopardize the program, live transmissions and the festival operation.
Solution
We designed and implemented the most robust possible topology. We created a network in which MW (microwave) technologies backed up each other (80 GHz links Ericsson MINI-LINK 6352 with capacity up to 10 Gbps and 60 GHz PtMP links from Tachyon Networks with 1 Gbps) along with optical infrastructure. The network ingress protection was secured by an NG Firewall FortiGate 200F in redundant 2 + 0 mode. In addition to the data backbone we installed, a large number of other active components such as switches, power supplies, 5G modems, UPS units, battery backups and covered the VIP zone with a WiFi network.
During the festival our on-site team proactively monitored all technologies and was ready for any service intervention in 24/7 mode.
Final Assessment
Thanks to the maximum effort of our team, which regularly worked until late hours, the implementation was delivered on time. Even in spite of unpredictable weather that accompanied the preparation and the first days of the festival, all technologies held up without failure - both in heavy rain and under demanding data transmission loads with zero tolerance for downtime. Colours of Ostrava could successfully proceed and we made sure the digital world of the festival operated just as reliably as the musical one.
High-capacity microwave links for the main backbone connections with data transfer speeds up to 10 Gbps and maximum reliability even under high load.
Wireless point-to-multipoint links for quick connection of smaller nodes where fibre would be inefficient or time-consuming.
A combination of optical and metallic connections ensuring fast, stable and flexible data transfer across the entire site.
First of all, I want to thank you and your team from VanCo for the SUPER professional work on the COO 25 project. Everything went flawlessly above expectations and the cooperation with your company is great - I will gladly recommend you or request you for further projects. I believe the same is on your side toward T-Mobile.
Petr Marvan, T-Mobile
Design Chapter Lead, tribe Connect