Checklist

Event Network Readiness Checklist

Work through this before your Event Network Risk Assessment. The more of it you can answer up front, the faster we can validate venue authorization, map your critical systems, and return a written scope. None of it requires a network engineer — it is about decisions and permissions, not configuration.

A reliable event network is the product of three things being settled before anyone orders a circuit or ships a crate: you are allowed to build it, you know exactly what depends on it, and you have decided what happens when something fails. This checklist walks each in turn. Treat the items as conversation prompts with your venue, your AV/production partner, and your payment and registration vendors.

Why this matters: venue authorization is the single most common reason an otherwise-ready deployment stalls. Resolving it early protects you from non-refundable spend on circuits and freight that you cannot use if access is denied.

1. Venue authorization — the gate before spend

Nothing else on this list matters if you are not permitted to operate a supplemental network at the site. The venue — not the organizer — controls pathways, demarc, and access. We treat written authorization as a hard qualification gate: no non-cancellable spend happens before it is in hand. We supplement venue circuits where permitted; we never bypass venue exclusivity.

Confirm whether the venue has an exclusive technology or telecom provider, and what that exclusivity actually covers.
Obtain written approval for a supplemental production and operations overlay behind the venue circuit.
Document pathway rules, the demarcation point, and any labor-jurisdiction requirements (in-house vs. union vs. outside contractors).
Identify who owns escalation with the venue's technology team — this should not fall on the organizer alone during the event.
Clarify timelines for access requests, certificates of insurance, and any venue paperwork that gates setup.

Not sure how to get this in writing? The Venue Authorization Guide covers what the authorization should spell out and how we help secure it.

2. Critical systems map

An event network is only as good as its understanding of what rides on it. List every revenue-critical and event-critical system, and note which ones must be on a wired connection. We design wired-first for anything that cannot tolerate interference — payments, registration, encoders, and production control.

Payment systems — wired path identified and counted; cashless or mobile fallback noted.
Registration & check-in — isolated from attendee traffic; scanner and kiosk locations mapped.
Production & production control — latency and reliability requirements documented with your production team.
Streaming / broadcast — upstream capacity and contribution-feed requirements scoped.
Staff operations — placed in a separate management zone, away from public and payment traffic.
Sponsor or activation needs — any partner systems that expect connectivity and need their own segment.

Tip: for each system, note the vendor, who supports it on event day, and whether the vendor brings their own managed connectivity. That single column prevents the “who owns the SLA” collision later.

3. Resilience & accountability

Resilience is a set of decisions made before go-live, not a hope held during the event. This group is about redundancy, who is responsible for what, and how payment traffic is isolated — all verified by a documented pre-opening acceptance test.

Connectivity resilience design documented — dual-WAN where the venue permits, or an approved single underlay with a defined failover plan.
Responsibility matrix drafted across venue, partner, organizer, and LGL so accountability is explicit, not assumed.
Data-responsibility boundaries assigned for payment traffic — see the Data Responsibility & Segmentation Guide.
Segmentation plan understood at a high level — see the Segmentation Standard Overview.
Pre-opening acceptance and failover test scheduled, with a clear go/no-go owner before go-live.
Cyber-liability and E&O insurance confirmed as a prerequisite for any party operating the network.

When you have worked the list

You do not need every box checked to start — that is what the assessment is for. Bring what you know, and we will validate the rest. We do not bypass venue exclusivity or sell commodity bandwidth; we deliver one accountable operator instead of finger-pointing across venue, AV, payment, registration and carriers.

Next step: request your Event Network Risk Assessment. We validate venue authorization feasibility, map critical systems, and return a written scope before any circuit orders or freight.

Request Event Network Risk Assessment See how it works

Bring this to your assessment

The more of the checklist you have answered, the faster we can return a written scope before anything becomes non-refundable.

Request Event Network Risk Assessment Back to Resources