This is a post by Jon Glickstein, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Partnerships at Live Nation

Today, stadiums, arenas, and festival sites around the globe are teaming up with fans who are excited to experience live entertainment; whether its seeing the biggest and brightest stars in music or the newest artists breaking onto the scene. The demand for live experiences is at an all-time high, and two-thirds of fans globally agree live music events are some of the most memorable moments of their lives. It’s no surprise fans mark the memory by taking photos and videos, but now, they are increasingly streaming live and sharing those experience in real time.

But it hasn’t always been this way. If you flash back even just a couple of years, the idea of connectivity at the heart of live entertainment experiences was somewhat foreign. Seamless, secure and connected experiences were not unimaginable, but simply much more difficult to pull off in practice.

Enter our partner, Cisco. Together, we developed a vision for a more connected era of live entertainment packed with more possibility: a single, converged network infrastructure that provides uninterrupted communication for all festival and concert operations, from back of house to front, allowing for seamless experiences across areas like point of sale, content streaming, fan activations and more.

Fast forward to 2023, coming off the heels of BottleRock, one of the world’s most premier festival experiences, our vision came to life as we connected over 60,000 fans and transferred more than a Super Bowl’s worth of data (43 terabytes!) across a Cisco network, without a hitch.

How did we get here? Unmatched partnership, technical expertise and a shared vision of what technology can make possible.

This remarkable achievement owes its success to the collaboration of countless partners who worked in tandem with Cisco to pull off this enormous technological feat. People working in the Rock Lititz community, for instance, conceived of what might be possible from a show production standpoint prior to the festival, so the performances were as memorable as we knew they could be. Meanwhile, Clair Global, who constructed the network infrastructure onsite, ensured fans, artists, sponsors and festival staff were connected, all the time. Their contributions are an essential part of what makes festivals like BottleRock a bucket-list experience for both artists and fans.

“What we have been able to do at BottleRock is build a reputation for being one of the most premium experiences in live entertainment,” said Jason Scoggins, Partner at Latitude 38 Entertainment, which produces BottleRock Napa Valley. “With the help of Cisco, we have an incredibly secure, robust, and reliable network, ensuring our sponsors, vendors, fans, and artists are more connected, contributing to an amazing experience for all.”

This is merely the beginning. Technology will continue to unlock new pathways for greater connection in live entertainment, whether you’re attending the live event in-person or tuning in virtually. As artist, fan, and sponsor expectations continue to evolve, so too will our need to deploy emerging technologies to meet and exceed those expectations and continue delivering bigger, better, and more connected fan experiences.