The Bournemouth International Centre (BIC)

Bournemouth International Centre is an award-winning premier conference, events, exhibitions and entertainment venue in Southern England.

The venue required a solution with flexibility, and the general public connection needed to be free, but also a system to deliver connections for exhibitors during events.

Learn how we solidified their reputation as a leading events venue, with total WiFi coverage and top-class connectivity.

About The Bournemouth International Centre

Organisation type

Venues Conference / Events

Size of operation

Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)

10,000 capacity

Client since

WiFi service 2017

Product suites

SPARK® Connect
- Analytics
- CMS
- Content Filtering

What makes the BIC brilliant?

Since opening its doors in September 1984, Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) has become a much-loved local landmark. It is an internationally recognised and award-winning venue.

BH Live has funded several major projects and all-weather attractions to improve the town’s offering with a diverse and appealing community programme for all.

Welcoming more than 300,000 visitors a year, the iconic venue hosts a versatile range of music, musicals, and comedy events year-round in partnership with its in-house event teams and industry promoters.

Goals

High quality connectivity
A robust and customisable solution with flexibility for wired and wireless provision
Multiple SSIDs to cater for different user profiles, such as public and exhibitors
Full WiFi compliance for GDPR
General public connection needs to be free
System to deliver connections for exhibitors during events.
Branded User Experience to engage with guests
Content filtering and user and device analytics
Optional marketing opportunities
Quality hardware “that just works”

About Bournemouth International Centre

The Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) is an award-winning premier conference, events and entertainment venue, situated at the town's centre whilst boasting panoramic views of its internationally-acclaimed coastline. Open since 6 September 1984, the truly multi-purpose venue provides the largest licensed capacity on the South Coast for up to 10,000 visitors and features 4 main auditoria. The BIC's flexibility lends itself in accommodating multi-hall conferences, exhibitions, meetings, large music concerts, dance and comedy performances.

Our Solution

SPARK TSL won the contract to provide WiFi to BIC ahead of a major competitor and delivered a full enterprise grade network with total coverage throughout the venue.

The Company installed a powerful SPARK® server to provide WIFi throughout the venue that is branched for three different purposes:

Free use by the public
Staff using email validation
Wired connection for exhibitors

Additional SSIDs for ticket scanners, epos software and performers are available, as well as the SPARK^® WebAdmin access for BIC staff to set up accounts for corporate visitors. Depending on the requirements of the event, different SSIDs are also available in different parts of the venue, offering complete flexibility.

SPARK TSL built a state-of-the-art User Experience Portal (UEP) and landing page that BIC is able to rebrand for each of the many concerts and events taking place. The UEP includes marketing opt-ins for the venue to best analyse WiFi usage in order to enhance the customer experience during concerts, events and future visits. Data collected from the UEP is fed into SPARK® Analytics. The team at the BIC are able to log in and view graphs showing anonymised network and device usage, new and returning visitors, plus a great deal more valuable insight to help them build and enhance their business intelligence.

A content filtering system was also deployed, which meets Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) regulations.

Finally, the solution benefits from SPARK TSL’s managed service, meaning that the BIC can confidently focus on event management and its core business, leaving the management of the WiFi to SPARK TSL. Features of the managed service include; filtering of content, data analytics, bandwidth management, legal compliancy, 24/7/365 remote monitoring & support helpdesk and bespoke User Experience Portal development.

Benefits

With total WiFi coverage and top class connectivity, the BIC have solidified their reputation as a cutting-edge and leading conference centre. This WiFi provision is used as an extra selling point for event organisers who recognise the importance of reliable connectivity. Therefore, the BIC can generate additional revenue by hosting more events. Having taken the strategic decision to upgrade their WiFi provision, the BIC can confidently claim to deliver among the best conference centre WiFi in the country.

Stats

In 2023, there were over 60,000 device sessions across the three types of servers.

In February 2024, over 700 people signed up to receive email marketing