Well-functioning IT is indispensable during a successful event. Live streams, live polls, TV broadcasts, live connections, cloud solutions, paperless registration modules, zoom meetings, production office, speaker-ready rooms, separate event networks; it demands a humongous effort from an IT infrastructure. With the ultra-modern IT infrastructure and the installation of Wi-Fi 6, the Beurs van Berlage is not only fully prepared for the digital events of the future, but is also at the forefront with her IT-infrastructure.

In recent months, while it has been deafeningly quiet in the event world, IT partner H&S Computer Services has been quite busy instead. The old Beurs van Berlage IT infrastructure was scrutinised and critically examined how we could make it future-proof in an increasingly digital world. The result is more than 6 kilometres of shielded cabling, 100 managed Wi-Fi 6 access points, very powerful routers, firewall and switches, and a flexible bandwidth of 1.5Gb to 10GB that can be used flexibly. Switches and routers are the backbone of the network. They are continuously monitored and configurations can be made remotely or locally.

In addition to the existing fibre optic internet connection, a second fibre optic connection was realised. The Beurs van Berlage has chosen to enter into a partnership with two independent fibre optic parties, each with their own specialism, so that risks are spread, speed is optimised and the event organiser can be offered a high level of operational reliability.

Part of the fibre can also be configured for live TV or radio broadcasts. A direct connection to the Media Gateway and Master Control room (live TV switching centre) in Hilversum is possible. A live TV broadcast in another country or continent or live streaming to (a) YouTube (channel) are also possible.

Wi-Fi 6 is the latest Wi-Fi standard. The handling of data is at least 4 times better than that of Wi-Fi 5. In general, this does not immediately lead to faster internet, but it does ensure a faster and more stable connection within the network. Setting up and connecting a separate network has always been possible in the Beurs van Berlage, but the high speed within this network is new. Does a speaker want to make last-minute changes to their presentation during your event? This can be done in our speaker-ready room, after which the presentation can easily be sent to the stage by means of a direct connection. Is your speaker in America and is he presenting via a live stream? Then he can easily upload the presentation to the separate cloud server, allowing him to make last-minute adjustments to his presentation.

The new wireless technology of Wi-Fi 6 also provides better Wi-Fi coverage, which is not entirely unimportant during events in a building of more than 170,000 ft². These wireless facilities can handle large numbers of users at the same time. In addition, it's nice to know that Wi-Fi 6 is getting better and better as time goes by, as more and more devices, such as mobile phones, fully support Wi-Fi 6.

But not everything has to be over the internet. Suppose you are organising a medical conference and you want to show live images of an operation during the conference. Here, details and ultra-sharp images without delay are important. This could be done via the internet, but there is a risk of delay there. In this case we can define a direct route to the hospital in question via a direct glass route.

In short, with our state-of-the-art IT infrastructure and the installation of Wi-Fi 6, the future of IT is already available today in the Beurs van Berlage. If you are curious about the technical details of our IT infrastructure, download our info sheet.