Six Degrees Group underpins major UK festival’s website

With live performances from OutKast and Basement Jaxx, Bestival, the four-day summer music festival set on the Isle of Wight, attracts over 55,000 attendees each year. Today, Bestival has announced Six Degrees Group (6DG) will be underpinning the event’s 2014 website with a resilient and secure hosting infrastructure.
6DG’s infrastructure will ensure Bestival’s website is performing at optimised levels throughout the lead up to, and duration of, the festival. The site - www.bestival.net - is the festival’s core marketing tool, providing the latest news and camping information, and acting as a referral site for ticket purchasing for the thousands of attendees.

Bestival chose 6DG to support their website based on its ability to deliver a resilient infrastructure that can underpin the environment throughout the event. 6DG has deployed a highly available hosting platform and a fully managed backup and disaster recovery solution that operates across geographically diverse locations. Crucially, the solution is fully scalable, which allows Bestival to add additional capacity, as and when required. When it anticipates an influx in traffic, for example when line-ups are announced, Bestival can simply expand its infrastructure to meet additional demand for the website. 6DG also provides an SLA for the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 24 hours and 4 hours respectively. This is seen as integral for the business continuity of Bestival as the site is fundamental to its entire operation.

Campbell Williams, Group Strategy and Marketing Director, Six Degrees Group said: “The Bestival website is vital when it comes to drawing the crowds to the event. It’s got to be able to perform under pressure when a new act is announced, facilitate ticket sales and seamlessly provide festival goers with the information they need when they are there. We have worked closely with Bestival to provide a solution that’s aligned to their specific business needs and delivers an excellent customer experience.”

Bruce Hay, Head of Digital, Bestival said: “With a huge array of cutting edge live acts and DJs, major headline acts such as OutKast, Foals, Chic ft. Nile Rodgers and Beck, Bestival’s popularity and audience continues to grow apace each year. The website is integral to this success, promoting and informing festival-goers of what’s happening and why they should join us in September. Through the website they have access to the latest information wherever they are and no matter how many others are online. We have confidence that when we’re due to make a big announcement, thanks to the inbuilt resilience of the solution, as well as the support and communication channels we have with 6DG, that our website will be able to support the demand for information.”