Whether you are holding a small school fête or a national sporting competition, two-way radios are the perfect solution for your communication needs at events. The simplicity of using two-way radios, often known more affectionately as walkie-talkies, is unbeatable when it comes to communicating with a large amount of volunteers or with different teams across an events site. Now I know you must be thinking, well everyone has a mobile phone, why can’t we just talk on that? Well, keep reading to find out!
Signal at Events
The thing is, to use group messaging services like WhatsApp or group text chains, everyone needs good phone service to receive all the messages. Quite often, you can have a group of friends all together and someone on a different network may not have signal, whilst other people do. So, for your event with lots of volunteers on different providers and the potential to have thousands of guests all using the networks, the chances of some people missing communications are very high.
The perfect thing about two-way radios? They don’t operate off mobile networks. They communicate directly with one another using frequencies and radio waves, so you NEVER miss a message! With teams of people across large event sites, it is imperative that important messages such as “I need a first aid team to the Italian food stall” are received by all the volunteers. Communications are instant and delivered straight to the receiver’s ears, rather than them having to consciously be looking out for a text.
Depending on the size of your site, there is always the option to boost your radio’s power from 0.5 watts, to 4 watts with a licence, but that’s a story for another day so keep an eye out for future blogs if you would like to learn more or check out this video on radio licences!
Speed at Events
In emergencies, two-way radios are a much faster way to communicate an issue to the whole events team. With push-to-talk, all your team members have to do is push a button and speak into the radio for everyone to hear instantly. Compare this to a phone call: unlocking the phone, opening the app up, finding the contact to call, waiting for them to pick up and then you can deliver your message. What may seem like a small task when you’re calling your friend for a quick catch up, but in an emergency, those extra seconds can feel like hours and can also be detrimental to a time sensitive issue.
And the kicker? If that one person you chose doesn’t pick up? Rinse and repeat those steps. Two-way radios will deliver your emergency message to everyone on your channel immediately saving you lots of crucial time during an crisis.
Privacy at Events
Privacy is important to a lot of us, especially in this time of social media where even just your phone number and first name can allow people to have access to extensive amounts of personal information. When bringing together a group of volunteers for an event such as a community fête, many people won’t feel comfortable giving out their personal phone numbers in order to communicate with everyone.
Two-way radios are your answer to that dilemma! Simply hand out radios to the volunteers and suddenly everyone can communicate with each other, no details exchanged! Certain radios such as the brand new Pronto P-9300 have the option to make private, individual and everyone group calls – meaning if you need to talk to a specific person or team, then you can!
So there you have it, just a quick run down of why walkie-talkies are the perfect solution for your communication needs at any event, all year round!
If you are holding an event, small or large, two-way radios are for you! With Maximon Solutions you can hire our radios for one-off and annual events like a music festival, or for regular fixtures like a weekly sport events or monthly car-boot sales, consider purchasing your very own brand-new shiny radios! For more product information go check out our wide variety of options on the website!
Happy Communicating!
Volunteers can communicate across your events site from the campsites to the ticket office.
