A behind-the-scenes look at delivering reliable connectivity at the UK’s biggest festival
Each year, Glastonbury brings together hundreds of thousands of people, an army of staff, and some of the busiest hospitality operations in the country. For the bars, traders, and food vendors on site, the ability to take card payments is absolutely essential. This year, Corona IT Solutions had the opportunity to oversee the payment-connectivity infrastructure for twenty of the festival’s main bars, ensuring that transactions stayed fast and dependable from the moment gates opened to the last performance.
While the festival experience appears effortless to those attending, a huge amount of unseen technical work sits behind it. Reliable payment systems are now fundamental to keeping queues manageable, maintaining revenue, and giving customers a smooth experience.
Why Festivals Are So Challenging for Connectivity
A festival environment is unlike any traditional venue. The sheer number of people, the constant movement, and the volume of electronic devices all create an extremely demanding wireless landscape. Infrastructure that works perfectly in a city centre bar can struggle significantly once placed in the middle of a field surrounded by tens of thousands of handsets.
In addition to that, conditions can shift rapidly—weather, footfall patterns, environmental factors, and power constraints all play a role. Designing systems that stay stable in the face of these variables is both a technical and logistical challenge.
Designing a Resilient Payment Network
To support the bars effectively, Corona IT Solutions implemented a layered and highly resilient approach to connectivity.
The principle was simple: ensure that if one connection faltered, another would immediately take its place. Rather than relying on a single link, each bar was equipped with multiple independent pathways to the internet, all working together to provide uninterrupted service. This meant that even during the busiest periods of the festival, card machines continued to process payments smoothly.
The success of the setup relied on careful planning, advance testing, and building a framework flexible enough to cope with the unpredictable nature of festival environments.
Creating High-Density Wireless Coverage for Payment Terminals
Inside each bar, we deployed a compact wireless network tailored purely for payment devices. Unlike public Wi-Fi, which needs to cover broader areas and support many types of devices, payment infrastructure demands:
• Very low latency
• Consistent and stable connectivity
• Minimal interference
• Predictable performance across the entire bar length
By positioning wireless access points at short intervals and designing the network specifically for the footprint of each bar, we were able to create strong and reliable coverage even when crowds pressed tightly against the front.
This design ensured that every payment terminal—no matter where it was positioned—had the connectivity it needed to operate uninterrupted.
Managing the System During the Festival
Once the gates opened, monitoring and adjusting became just as important as the initial installation.
Festival environments shift constantly throughout the day. As crowds build, bars become busier, and environmental factors fluctuate, the network must adapt. Throughout the festival, we kept a close eye on performance, responded proactively to any signs of congestion, and fine-tuned the setup in real time. This approach allowed us to prevent issues long before they affected payment processing.
From the first transaction of the morning to the last order of the night, the infrastructure remained stable—delivering confidence both to the bar teams and to the thousands of customers relying on fast, frustration-free service.
A Privilege to Support One of the World’s Greatest Festivals
Working at Glastonbury is always a remarkable experience. The scale is immense, the pace is relentless and the expectations are high. Being trusted to support part of the operational backbone of twenty bars is something we, as an organisation, take great pride in.
This year’s deployment showcased what can be achieved with thoughtful planning, resilient design, and a commitment to delivering reliability, even in the most demanding conditions. As festivals continue to grow and payment technology becomes increasingly critical, building strong, dependable connectivity will only become more important.
For our team, Glastonbury 2025 was a highlight—both a challenge and an accomplishment. It demonstrated the essential role that well-engineered IT infrastructure now plays in bringing the modern festival experience to life.
