On 2nd November, MFC took on an exciting project for The Farnham Round Table Fireworks event. Our Director, Max, shares the journey in this post.

Last year, a good neighbour and the father of my son’s classmate asked if I knew anything about Wi-Fi. This always piques my interest! “We know a little,” I replied. He’s a valued member of the Farnham Round Table, which organises the annual Farnham Park Fireworks event—the biggest fireworks event in town. Mobile signal in the park is poor, so the food and drink vendors struggle with their card payment terminals. They needed a reliable Wi-Fi network, and I offered to devise a solution for them. A few months later, discussions were had, plans were made, and a sponsorship spot was agreed upon.

First, we needed an Internet source. Wi-Fi is mostly useless without it! Choosing Starlink to provide the Internet was a no-brainer. It’s amazingly fast, considering the signal travels to and from SPACE! 📡🛰️ Thankfully, we could rent a kit for a reasonable cost.

The next challenge was distributing Wi-Fi between the various areas that needed it. For this, the easy choice was Ubiquiti equipment. The price-to-performance ratio is excellent, and it’s relatively easy to install and manage. Specifically, we used a USG Gateway Max router and U6-Mesh-Pro Access Points. Using the UniFi system allowed us to easily configure and manage everything from a laptop or mobile device, which proved crucial on the night!

We set up two towers (rented from YES Events): one for the core tower with the Starlink dish mounted and the other for the vendor area. The distance between the towers, location, and terrain meant that using a cable or fibre was impossible. So, we used a Point-to-Point Wi-Fi link. Again, we used Ubiquiti kit, specifically the Nanostation 5AC Loco’s. Despite a tree being in the way and somewhat guesstimate alignment, it connected at 100% straight away and sustained its maximum throughput throughout the event.

After fully powering up and testing, the Wi-Fi signal and available bandwidth were excellent. We thought we’d nailed it. The vendors were happy, and so was The Round Table. All was well from opening at 5 pm until the crowds arrived at about 6:45 pm.

Then, we had a serious issue: devices were dropping from the network, and connections were terribly slow. Hundreds of people were queuing for food and drink, and card payments were slow or failing. The queues were getting bigger by the minute, and we had to find a solution, or there would be upset, particularly at the bar tent! This was a colossal stomach-drop moment for my colleague Will and I. What was happening?

But this is what MFC does best. Together, we worked as the epic team we are. Without a word between us, Will jumped to help and communicate with people about the problem while I troubleshot the issue. Using the UniFi app, I could see that all devices were online and that Starlink was connected, too. Wi-Fi clients were connected, but there was no throughput.

After rebooting the equipment didn’t help (“Have you tried turning it off and on again?”), I changed a setting in the UniFi app, which was distributed to all the UniFi equipment. A couple of minutes later, after the devices updated, all Wi-Fi clients reconnected, and all was well again—and our heart rates lowered! This is a definite win for UniFi’s fantastic management software.

All was well for the rest of the event, and we also got to enjoy the fantastic fireworks display. At the end of the event, we took down the equipment and towers and left the site like we had never been there.

Overall, the event was a success for MFC and a massive success for The Farnham Round Table, which raised £35,000 for local causes. We hope to do it again next year, with some lessons learnt to improve it.