Zwarte Cross 2022: the partings and the reunions

Zwarte Cross Festival | Hospitality / Public venues | The Netherlands

“Welcome home!” or, as they say in the Achterhoek region: “Welkom Thuus!” – that has been an unofficial slogan of the Zwarte Cross festival from its very beginning in 1997. 25 years forward and after 3 years of the pandemic break, the spirit of fun, openness and famous Dutch hospitality is alive and well. And to help everyone reconnect, Extreme and the partners built a network like never before!

The 2022 edition of the Zwarte Cross festival was special for many reasons. And not only for the sheer fact that its quarter-century anniversary coincided with the first edition of the event after the long, forced hiatus due to the pandemic. After 25 years, Rikie Nijman, better known as Aunt Rikie – the very symbol, spiritual leader, certified queen and an unofficial CEO of the festival – announced her well-deserved retirement.

But every end means a new beginning. This year, the 4-day event featured 38 stages and spanned across 160 hectares, inviting everyone for a worldwide unique combination of music, sports, stunts, theatre, and arts. What started off as a fairly small gathering attended by around 1000 people, eventually grew to become the world’s largest music and motocross event, headlined by acts such as Papa Roach (2010), Blondie (2011), Black Eyed Peas (2019) or, most recently, Dropkick Murphys.

After being cancelled in 2020 and 2021, Zwarte Cross festival came back for good, and with all the bands, stuntmen, performers, and – most importantly – almost 230,000 visitors, was meant to provide a significant boost both to morale and the local economy of Achterhoek, a beautiful rural region in the east of the Netherlands.

The invisible performer

Is 3 years a long time? That depends. If you inquire a geologist, the answer will be a rock-solid “No”. But ask anyone in the technology business and you can probably already guess where this analogy is going. As the technologies have been evolving over the past years, so have the users and their demands and requirements. Some event organizers are well aware of that.

“The network is the invisible headline act of the Zwarte Cross festival – it has to perform in order to provide an optimal experience for our guests, performers, and staff. These days, festival attendees expect fluid Wi-Fi to capture, share and engage content while at our event”, says Ronnie Degen, Owner at Feestfabriek AKG B.V., the organizer of the festival. “On the other hand, we wanted our IT staff to feel confident that the network is secure, functional and that they had real-time visibility into performance”.

So, despite continued successful cooperation in previous editions of the event, the Zwarte Cross management team acknowledged the need for a complete network refresh and deployment of new strategic technologies – not only to enable a quality connectivity for both attendees and staff, but also to ensure an unforgettable experience and a party worthy of a send-off for the beloved Aunt Rikie.

These days, festival attendees expect fluid Wi-Fi to capture, share and engage content while at our event.

Therefore, just like in 2018 and 2019, Zwarte Cross turned to Extreme to provide a comprehensive, secure, and reliable wired and wireless connectivity for the 3rd consecutive time. To deliver on that promise, Extreme joined forces with Indicium B.V., our integrator partner for Wireless, LAN and Mobile computing technologies, as well as Palo Alto Networks for Cybersecurity applications.

“We chose Extreme, Palo Alto Networks and Indicium B.V. to partner with us to ensure this event was equipped in a way that made the experience engaging, secure and memorable”, Ronnie Degen comments the choice.

New beginnings, new solutions, new generation: Wi-Fi 6

Anyone attending an event like Zwarte Cross expects a high quality connectivity that will support and enhance their festival experiences. Alas, mobile data burn through quickly when you get into bandwidth-intensive applications like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or video streaming services like YouTube or Twitch. Instinctively, we tend to look for a well-performing Wi-Fi network – even when we find ourselves in such high density environments like music festivals.

In order to meet the ever-increasing connectivity requirements, Zwarte Cross decided to literally take a generational leap.

“We didn’t just improve network coverage – we replaced the old access points with the latest technology from Extreme based on the new generation of Wi-Fi”, says Patrick Groot Nuelend, EMEA Solutions Architect at Extreme Networks, who has been directly involved with the Zwarte Cross festival since 2018. “The new Wi-Fi 6 access points from Extreme provided unprecedented coverage, higher bandwidth and better overall experience, granting the users high-performing connectivity to applications and services, including the 2022 Zwarte Cross festival app”.

Extreme Fabric Connect: a network that’s more secure and easier to operate

Of course, the most important part of any music festival are its attendees. But let’s try to imagine what would happen if the critical infrastructure like coin machines or video surveillance systems didn’t work smoothly or, what’s even scarier, went down. Best case scenario: your guests are not happy. Worst case scenario: they are no longer safe.

In other words, Zwarte Cross required a reliable, flexible and secure network solution for the back office to allow the operational teams to support key operations of the event, as well as securely connect all the staff devices, IoT things and services. The challenges? Trivial, yet serious: tight schedule, not a lot of power in the fields, and like in many cases, limited availability of a highly-skilled personnel on site.

With Extreme Fabric Connect we made sure that all the critical services and applications were fully segmented and secure.

“Bottom line, the tech team at Zwarte Cross wanted a network that was way easier and more cost-effective to set up, manage and operate. To achieve that, we replaced the old wired infrastructure with our flagship solution: Extreme Fabric Connect”, says Henk Bretveld, Country Manager Benelux at Extreme Networks. “Fabric Connect provided a secure and scalable network to deploy and operate around 100 IP cameras across the festival areas. Due to the reduced number of touch points and the automation of many manual processes, the new solution not only allowed to deploy services and applications much faster – it also eliminated the risk of a human error, making it more stable and resilient”.

“With Extreme Fabric Connect we made sure that all the critical services and applications were fully segmented and secure”, adds Patrick de Jong, SE Manager at Palo Alto Networks. “Moreover, our scalable ML-Powered Next Generation Firewalls with cloud delivered security services, enabled the organizers to deploy a segmented Zero Trust network for the entire infrastructure. Underpinned by our best-in-class cybersecurity, we were able to deliver an exceptional and secure internet experience for all visitors”.

ExtremeCloud IQ and ExtremeAnalytics: hear more, see more, know more

When you’re running a big event like Zwarte Cross, you definitely want to have a comprehensive view of what's really happening in the network and ensure it’s running optimally. In order to get the complete performance, health, and security picture of every user and device in the network, Zwarte Cross decided to utilize ExtremeCloud IQ management platform.

“ExtremeCloud IQ made it simpler for the technical team at the Zwarte Cross festival to proactively pinpoint and troubleshoot any network issues. They were able to see what applications were running on their network, who was using them and what was the response time for each application, among many other things”, says John Rutgers, Senior Account Executive at Extreme Networks. “The solution also empowers the provisioning of tailor-made services based on visitor behavior. By combining it with ExtremeAnalytics, Zwarte Cross gained better insights into operational efficiencies and attendee preferences, which can be used to better customize and improve the festival experience in the future”.

It’s time to reconnect!

Network refresh project aside, Zwarte Cross 2022 was a great moment to connect with friends old and new, and strengthen great business relations.

“We work with a wide-range of clients and partners to deploy solutions across all types of environments and our partnership with Extreme Networks allows us to provide the support required to host truly connected events. We were delighted to see Zwarte Cross return after a three-year absence and observe its improved networking capabilities in action”, says Hans Nolen, Owner at Indicium B.V.

“We’re working closely with our partners to ensure that we are pushing the boundaries of what is possible, looking at new ways to leverage the network to improve the fan experience, and making it easy to access and act upon analytics to optimize operations. Zwarte Cross 2022 showed that Extreme excels at providing consistent, scalable, and secure experiences in high density environments”, Henk Bretveld adds.

Aunt Rikie may be retiring, but her legacy will live on.

“We’ve made it big by staying small. The event itself can be viewed as a network of smaller festival areas which, connected together, form one big, unforgettable experience. That’s what Zwarte Cross has always been about”, Ronnie Degen sums up. “Something ends, and something begins. Aunt Rikie may be retiring, but her legacy will live on in the unique spirit of our festival, now powered with new energy. We are already counting the days until the Rikie-carnation in 2023!”.

Would you like to talk about creating effortless networking experiences for your venue or event?

About Indicium B.V.

Indicium B.V. was founded in 1999 in Barendrecht, the Netherlands. The company is proud of its broad portfolio built up over the years. The knowledge, which has always been needed in every project, makes Indicium today a very reliable company in the field of Enterprise Mobility.

Indicium distinguishes itself in the market through its broad knowledge and expertise in the field of diverse wireless networks. For example, the company proudly received the ‘Motorola Most Innovative Wireless Solution’ award in 2012. Indicium's specialized designers design the most efficient and effective solutions, where functionality and flexibility are central.

About Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks, the global cybersecurity leader, is shaping the cloud-centric future with technology that is transforming the way people and organizations operate. The company’s mission is to be the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.

Palo Alto Networks helps address the world's greatest security challenges with continuous innovation that seizes the latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, analytics, automation, and orchestration. By delivering an integrated platform and empowering a growing ecosystem of partners, the company is at the forefront of protecting tens of thousands of organizations across clouds, networks, and mobile devices. Palo Alto’s vision is a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before.