Óbuda Island is a quiet and peaceful place for most of the year, a popular destination for runners, dog walkers and families visiting playgrounds. During the Sziget Festival, however, it is transformed in a matter of days into a busy place with visitors from all over the world – a bustling mini-metropolis where people enjoy concerts and events together 24 hours a day, and share their experiences in the digital world.
It’s almost like building a city from a network development perspective
The system requires a lot of design and technical expertise in the background to manage the huge network demand, mobile traffic and calls. Preparations for the Sziget Festival begin months in advance, with a network covering an area of just over 1 square kilometre that can serve a town the size of Tatabánya, or up to 60,000 to 80,000 people at a time. The data traffic of the Festival during these 6 days is equivalent to that of almost 35 base stations in Budapest, and the combined traffic of the Festival’s base stations comes up to 25 times the traffic of an average weekday in Budapest. In a normal environment, the capacity of the stations is shared between users, but when tens of thousands of people are gathered in a small area, extra capacity is needed.
Yettel’s experts have installed 6 new mobile base stations to beef up the network throughout the Festival, with additional reinforcements in the most popular locations, including the area in front of the Main Stage, near the iconic electronic music party venue and the Yettel Colosseum, to ensure coverage and, for the first time this year, a flawless 5G experience. Thanks to the operator’s international partners, VoLTE roaming is now available in 80 countries worldwide, significantly increasing network capacity by moving voice traffic to 4G, which can handle significantly more concurrent calls. In the case of Sziget, VoLTE roaming will be available to foreign visitors.
New digital solutions on the Island of Freedom
Yettel will be the official telecom partner of the Sziget Festival for the next few years. As part of the partnership, one of Europe’s most special electronic music venues has been revamped under the name Yettel Colosseum, with a unique design made of pallets that will be one of the most spectacular structures and most popular meeting points of the Festival. The mobile operator will also provide a range of solutions and activities, including mobile charging points and the iconic Yettel lime body paint, to make the festival experience even more memorable for visitors.
This year, a special digital innovation will make the festival experience even more unique. The Yettel Sziget YoMo app will allow festival-goers to create their own aftermovie. With the app, they can be part of the official Sziget Festival video and share it on their own platforms. The app uses artificial intelligence to combine users’ own footage with the Festival’s official aftermovie to create a unique, personalised video every day, featuring their favourite artists. The videos will also be entered into a prize game on the Island of Freedom. The lucky winners will receive unlimited access and a new mobile phone with Yettel’s new digital subscription: https://www.yettel.hu/sziget-fesztival