Justin Timberlake FutureSex/LoveShow
FutureSex/Love Show- Saving Money With WANetics!
The Justin Timberlake FutureSex/Loveshow might be the biggest tour of the 2007 season. Having just completed its first leg in North America, the tour is currently hitting Europe hard through July. Justin Timberlake certainly leaves his mark in a big way as the tour makes its way around the globe. However, for those minding the money, communication expense is a line item at settlement that also bears the mark of a modern tour's need for unfailing links to people and data around the globe.
A single show can include thousands of dollars worth of Internet connections, phone lines and usage. Communication is constant, and often costly. In years past, a major tour would require up to two dozen phone lines and up to half a dozen Internet drops. With conventional technology, the bill would often be in excess of $5,000 a show.
However, Justin Timberlake and his team are innovators. Audiences have never seen anything like the FutureSex/Loveshow. And those working behind the scenes have never been so well connected. The tour manages its communication costs by traveling with its own system. Instead of using the network and phone system provided at each venue, Timberlake's enormous entourage of band, dancers, crew, and drivers tour with a system designed by WANetics, LLC of Chicago, IL.
Accompanied by a technician from WANetics, the tour group uses a single Internet drop at each venue. The system distributes this one signal wirelessly to each of five offices (production, promoter, tour management, accounting, crew) using a frequency that travels comfortably through walls but does not interfere with WiFi.
Within each tour office is a single road case that contains a laser printer, WiFi, customized storage for phones and cables, and an advanced Power over Ethernet switch. This switch provides a network connection as well as power to each phone.
Each case contains a voice application layer gateway that supports up to eight VoIP phones per office. This advanced device ensures that phone quality is excellent throughout the world, even when Internet quality is limited. Managed and monitored, the system remains reliable and tuned to the tour's requirements no matter what city they might find themselves in.
In practice, the establishment of the communications system in any given city on the tour is quick and easy. The technician receives the first road case during load-in and performs some minimal configuration to connect to the local Internet. Within minutes, Internet and phone capability is up on the first office and begins to spread to the other offices.
Free international calls home are available to anyone on the tour from public backstage phones. Each member of the office staff has their own dedicated extension on a full featured corporate phone system. Voicemail and extension dialing within the tour are the same in every city. Incoming fax numbers never change and are routed by email to all the right people. Calls are sharp and voices are clear.
Secure WiFi is available throughout the venue for the entire tour. Networked printing on color laser printers is available to everyone on the tour's own traveling corporate network. In minutes, the entire tour is going about the business of communicating with each other and with the rest of the world.
The VoIP technology permits a consistent US presence number to be used throughout the tour. It also facilitates international presence numbers so that in Europe, for instance, US callers can use the primary US number and European callers can use numbers based out of other cities such as London, Frankfurt or Paris.
According to Steve Dixon, Business Manager for the Justin Timberlake FutureSex/Loveshow, "With traditional service, telecom bills for a large arena tour could cost thousands of dollars a night. WANetics offers a truly professional grade WiFi and VoIP system that can save any tour a lot of money". The tour is even able to provide several free phones for public use throughout the backstage area, allowing crew members to phone home at no charge.
Janet Rogers, CEO of WANetics explains, "The system gives the tour an exceptional ability to manage bandwidth, which can be limited on the road. On most large tours the Internet is completely unusable by 4pm. We are able to make sure that tour management and production has access no matter how intense the demand is."
While a group tours, the system knows the tour schedule and keeps the auto-attendant and greetings up-to-date and communications in step. WANetics technology can be found this season in other tours including Genesis, Incubus, Guns ‘n Roses and Hilary Duff.
WANetics touring partners include Tour Tech Support (http://www.tourtechsupport.com/), Road Radios (http://www.roadradios.com/), Music Tour Management, MT Cases, (http://www.mtcases.com/), Edgewater Networks (http://www.edgewaternetworks.com/), Polycom (http://www.polycom.com/), and Cisco (http://www.cisco.com/).