Westcan ACS is the official on-site communications sponsor for UFest Edmonton
Festival Site Logistics
Spring is arriving soon in Western Canada, and with the warm weather will come an influx of parades, festivals, and outdoor concerts. With these large scale events there are many moving pieces that need to be managed to ensure operational efficiency and safety of staff, volunteers, and attendees.
Typically, festivals will have a variety of teams who need to work together to host a successful event. Security, site logistics, vendors, volunteers, and staff all need to be able to communicate instantly, and at a moments notice. Often, two-way radios are the best solution.
Instant Communication
Where communication devices like cellphones require users to dial a number, let the phone ring, and await the recipients answer, two-way radios allow for instant, seamless communication with push-to-talk functionality. Talk groups and channel programming allow festivals to organize each of their teams or subcommittees on to their own channel to avoid over crowding – which allows security to respond to incidents, site logistics to launch an event on main stage, customer experience to restock beverages, and janitorial to request a clean up – all at the same time without interference.
Our History with Festivals
At Westcan, we understand the importance of festivals having on-site communications. Our team has been the official on-site communications sponsor for the Edmonton Fringe Festival for almost a decade – providing two-way radio communications to thousands of volunteers and staff. By programming the Fringe Festival’s radios on to our city-wide trunking system, their team benefit from seamless coverage in a densely populated area where buildings can cause coverage issues.
We also provide on-site communications for UFest Edmonton, one North America’s largest Ukrainian festivals. This annual festival attracts approximately 65,000 attendees, and has about 450 volunteers, all in an outdoor city park setting where radio interference is a risk.
Westcan is the official on-site communications sponsor for the Edmonton Fringe Festival
Image property of UFest Edmonton
Festival Rentals
Communication requirements are very “event specific”, and will vary dramatically depending on scale, environment, and programming needs. As a result, our rentals team will help you navigate the complex field of two-way radio and help suggest the right communications set-up for your event.
Whether your team needs a basic simplex system, or a complete trunking system, our team can help. At Westcan, we commonly work with festivals to ensure reliable on site communications by providing equipment such as:
In summary,
Being able to communication throughout festival grounds is necessary for all large scale events. Having to rely on cell phones for text messages or phone calls will result in communication disruptions and a breakdown in operations. For this reason, many large-scale events have two-way radio communications written into their emergency response protocols.
For more information on how two-way radios can help keep your event connected, read our quick case study on UFest Edmonton below, or reach out to our rentals team for more information.
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