Holkham Estate

Holkham, is a unique and idyllic location for with many buildings and a vast Estate parkland, which can accommodate large-scale outdoor events and marquees for up to 2,000 guests. With such a versatile portfolio of venue options on offer, the estate needed to ensure that the right technology was in place to facilitate any required level of production. This includes WiFi connectivity for ticketing, vendors, food stalls and bars. The Estate engaged Simpli-Fi’s expertise to remedy the poor connectivity issues which were causing problems for events being held within the estate.

Our Solution

Simpli-Fi worked with the Holkham Estate team to deliver core infrastructure upgrades throughout the grounds. We installed a new core network with long-range 4G backup specifically to cater for their events. We worked with their existing IT contractor to utilise, where possible, their switches and fibre connectivity to keep costs down. We also installed cabling to the roof of Holkham Hall to enable us to quickly deploy point-to-point wireless links to various areas of the site, such as the Temple and Walled Garden. For more remote areas of the estate, we have installed a temporary network, currently fed by satellites, but running fibre to these locations is planned for the next phase of this project. These upgrades enabled the Holkham events team to respond quickly to the rising demand for fast, reliable, cost-effective internet and WiFi for their live events.

Challenges

Holkham Hall already had a gigabit internet connection and some cabling infrastructure in place to facilitate their office network and related services but lacked the IT flexibility to extend the network short-term to the various event spaces across the estate. Attempts to utilise this network to facilitate PDQ machines for food vendors and temporary car parks had previously produced mixed results. There is almost no cellular signal throughout the site, with much of the estate being a signal dead spot on most networks, so venue WiFi becomes critical to enable the smooth operation of the events.