x

The latest industry news to your inbox.


I'd like to hear about marketing opportunities

    

I accept IQ Magazine's Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy

news

Glastonbury 2016 ‘most connected festival ever’

As EE prepares to install the biggest-ever temporary 4G network, Damon Albarn, Tame Impala, Disclosure and Tom Odell join the updated line-up

By IQ on 31 May 2016

Glastonbury sign, EE, Kris Williams

image © Kris Williams

This year’s Glastonbury Festival will feature the UK’s largest-ever temporary 4G mobile data network.

BT-owned EE (Everything Everywhere), which will install the festival’s 4G network, says it will make Glastonbury “the most connected [open-air] music festival in the world” and expects festivalgoers to use 15TB of data – 20 times more than in 2011, the last time Coldplay headlined.

The network, which is Glastonbury’s technology and communications partner and also co-develops the festival’s app, will install a sixth temporary mobile antenna at Worthy Farm  and implement ‘4G Calling’-branded voice-over-LTE technology to allow phone calls to be made over the 4G network.

“People in the UK are using their mobiles more than ever before to share cherished experiences,” says EE’s director of brand, Spencer McHugh. “2016 has already seen 4G data usage increase by at least 40% at other major events year on year, and this trend shows no sign of slowing down. Each year social media feeds all over the world are flooded with images and videos of Glastonbury Festival, so, in anticipation of the huge demand we expect to see at Worthy Farm this June, we’ve tripled our 4G capacity thanks to a number of new innovative network technologies.”

Glastonbury today confirmed the full line-up – which includes new additions Tame Impala, Tom Odell, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Disclosure, Damon Albarn and the Orchestra of Syrian Musicians, Highasakite and and more (was that Radiohead rumour a dud?) – and stage timings for the 2016 festival, which takes from 22 to 26 June in Pilton in Somerset. Here’s the poster:

Glastonbury 2016 final line-up poster, EE