CTS 384: Wi-Fi for Live Events: Lessons from the Real-World

CTS 384: Wi-Fi for Live Events: Lessons from the Real-World

From Clear To Send: Wireless Network Engineering by Rowell Dionicio and François Vergès

January 26, 2026 · 39 min

About this episode

The episode discusses the challenges and strategies for managing Wi-Fi at high-density live events.

Thank you to our sponsor: Meter: Visit  meter.com/cleartosend  to book a demo! Managing Wi-Fi at high-density events is a completely different game than running a typical enterprise network — it’s crowded, fast-moving, and unforgiving. In this episode, Francois and I break down what it really takes to deliver reliable event Wi-Fi, starting with planning and preparation. You have to decide early if you’re relying on the venue’s existing network or building your own (which can mean deploying hundreds of APs in just a few days), and even if it’s the same venue, the layout changes every time. What matters most is understanding how people move and behave — like when a huge crowd hits the security area and everyone downloads the conference app at once — and planning your capacity around those predictable bottlenecks so you’re not constantly reacting under pressure. We also talk about how monitoring event Wi-Fi needs a different mindset and a tighter feedback loop. Instead of waiting for tickets to roll in, you need to watch live performance signals like channel utilization, client counts per radio, and clients per SSID, because those trends tell you what’s about to break…

People in this episode

Hosts: Francois, Rowell Dionicio

Topics covered

  • Wi-Fi management
  • live events
  • network planning
  • event technology
  • high-density environments

Keywords

  • Wi-Fi
  • event management
  • network planning
  • capacity planning
  • monitoring
  • Grafana
  • AP deployment
  • client counts

Sponsors

Meter

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Ekahau Analyzer, Sidekick, WN Pi Go

Books & works: conference app

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