Cheltenham Festival Racegoers enjoy seamless and secure Wi-Fi The Ultimate BYOD Event
A winning combination - The Jockey Club uses wireless technology to engage with 260,000 spectators. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE CHALLENGE
Customer: The Jockey Club Attracting over 260,000 racegoers to watch the best jumping action in the world, Cheltenham Location: Cheltenham Racecourse Racecourse truly deserves its nickname as the ‘jewel in Jump Racing’s crown’. The wireless Industry: Sports, Leisure & Conferencing network is an imperative part of the Festival, with thousands of users entering the wireless Scale: Over 260,000 spectators, media, airspace. The Jockey Club, who own Cheltenham sponsors and bookmakers Racecourse, wanted to engage more effectively with users such as spectators, members, staff, Challenge: Providing high-speed and reliable sponsors, media and business partners. They also wireless coverage throughout the wanted to gain insights into racegoer behaviour 350 acre / 67,500 capacity enabling them to plan future investments and racecourse, that can be monitored better serve their customers. and analysed for security and user engagement. Due to the nature of a racing event, providing Wi-Fi coverage has a number of challenges. The Solution: High capacity Xirrus wireless sizable airspace can quickly become congested network & management system, with other users such as the media, bookmakers, Ucopia guest portal registration, onsite third parties and neighbouring businesses. Fortigate firewalls & web filtering The scale of the event means there are many areas Results: Flawless and secure wireless of high user density, a significant sized site to be coverage, seamless scalability, covered, and a large flow of users moving around complete visibility with in-depth site to also factor in when designing the network. reporting and monitoring “Wi-Fi at the Festival is extremely popular THE SOLUTION and in high demand by spectators and other The Cheltenham Festival lasts just four days but stakeholders in all areas of the racecourse. the work at GGR started three weeks in advance to We need it to be secure and easy to monitor ensure the infrastructure and management systems so we can better engage with users. GGR were installed and tested on time. Comprising Communications designed and installed a of 268 permanent and 44 temporary Xirrus high- Wi-Fi solution that gave everyone exceptional capacity wireless arrays, the Wi-Fi solution that coverage, with the reliability, visibility and GGR installed equipped Cheltenham Racecourse security that The Jockey Club needed to with proven technology to deliver high speed and guarantee a first-class and safe experience. reliable wireless Internet access to thousands of I’m looking forward to working with GGR users in and around the venue. GGR also installed next year at Cheltenham and across our other additional temporary equipment, including 13 Cisco switches, 3000m of cabling and 400m of racecourses.” fibre. With the Tented Village alone covering 10 acres, this large scale operation requires dedication David Dommett, Group IS Director and teamwork. The Jockey Club The universal wireless network was able to support both bespoke services and the Xirrus Management System to provide in-depth monitoring and management of the network. It also supported the “Every year at Cheltenham we look to Ucopia Guest Portal Registration System and the enhance the experience we offer our FortiGate firewalls that were essential for blocking racegoers. Providing free Wi-Fi is a fantastic unwanted content, keeping Festival goers secure innovation for our customers and provides whilst browsing. us with a number of commercial benefits.”
Ian Renton, Regional Director of the THE RESULT South West Region To gain access to the Wi-Fi, spectators followed a simple sign-in and registration process on a bespoke, branded Jockey Club portal. This provided a means of targeting racegoers more effectively, and also control over which websites users were BENEFITS able to access. Via Ucopia’s network analytics, The Jockey Club was able to monitor user data, such • Seamless wireless provision throughout as when users access the network, for how long, the racecourse and adjoining conference and on what device. This allowed The Jockey Club facilities. to tailor its services accordingly and engage with • Enabled over 260,000 spectators to share these spectators to promote future events. their racing commentary, place bets and The one-time registration process encouraged access other online services. users to communicate with each other and access • Empowered The Jockey Club to gain unique online services throughout the event. The Wi-Fi insights into fan behaviour, allowing them and management systems gave unique insights to identify areas for improvement. into how fans moved around the racecourse and used the facilities, identifying potential areas for • Transformed the way The Jockey Club investment and improvement for The Jockey Club, incorporated and utilised technology to enabling them to better serve their needs year better engage with stakeholders. after year.
01905 825900 www.ggr.net/communications [email protected]