Steam at Scale: 500Mbps Connectivity for 8,000 Visitors

Company

WRSA Steam Rally Festival

Industry

Charity | Festival

Location

Taunton, Somerset

Website

Description

WSRA organizes an annual steam and vintage rally to fundraise for railway preservation.

The Event: 8,000 People in the Middle of Nowhere

WSRA's annual Steam Rally draws 8,000 vintage transport enthusiasts to rural Somerset. It's their main fundraiser—critical for keeping the historic West Somerset Railway alive.

But they run it in a field with no fibre. No traditional infrastructure. Just grass, steam engines, and the desperate need to keep payments processing all day long.

The Problem: Every Dropped Payment Costs Them Money

During the rally, card terminals need to work. Constantly. Food vendors, ticket booths, exhibitor payments—all rely on live connectivity. Drop the connection for 30 seconds and transactions fail. Visitors get angry. Sales disappear. The year's fundraising evaporates.

Previous years, they'd rented temporary WiFi systems and watched them buckle under 8,000 visitors. Weak signals in tents. Dead zones at the food court. Customers abandoning transactions. They needed bulletproof connectivity, not a band-aid.

The Solution: Integra Bridge with Multiple 4G/5G and Starlink

Integra deployed Integra Bridge—a platform that bonds multiple 4G/5G connections together with Starlink backup. In a field with no traditional infrastructure, that redundancy is essential. If one connection falters, the others pick up instantly.

The result: 500Mbps+ throughout the site. Secure payment network with zero downtime. Radio links blanketed the entire venue—drinks tent, ticket booth, exhibition areas. All accessible. All fast. Zero dropped transactions. That's how they hit record sales.

Integra Bridge mast deployed on-site, delivering 500Mbps+ across the festival grounds.