I attended the Electric Daisy Carnival music festival near Las Vegas, Nevada, to support EMS agencies using FirstNet. While there, I talked with Cody Snow, who is president of Prevent Medical Solutions, a mobile medical system that specializes in event staffing. He shared his agency’s experience with staffing large events held in places without robust communication infrastructure.  

In Las Vegas, I saw how a combination of FirstNet, innovative technologies, and comprehensive planning kept EMS operational in a challenging operational environment.

Testing the local limits

Held over three days, the Electric Daisy Carnival draws crowds of up to 185,000 people per night. The festival is held on the infield of a 1.5-mile NASCAR track in the desert north of Las Vegas. It’s a tough place for communications.

There is one tower a couple hundred yards north of the venue to handle all 185,000+ devices from concertgoers.

“We are 100% testing the limits of every local network because we're bringing in hundreds of thousands of people to an area that never would have that,” said Cody. “Some of these festivals and events, they don't normally have infrastructure to support tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands people.”

Imagine it this way: every single attendee’s device emits fog. When trying to connect, any signal must penetrate the fog to reach the single cell site. Even with satellite uplink capability, the fog impedes the satellite signal.

“Over the years, we've learned a lot of things,” said Cody. “We bring in the deployables to bring coverage where it normally isn't. We're able to bring in Cell Booster Pros. We're able to do that stuff to bring connectivity even in the dark areas.”

Infrastructure for high volume services

An Annals of Emergency Medicine study showed that medical services at the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas sees a high volume of patients. The average is nearly 7,000 visits over 3 days. Most patients were seeking care for intoxication, trauma, dehydration, or dizziness — plus more extreme cases that include life-threatening complications from drug overdoses.

It was estimated that a medical services call is dispatched every five to seven minutes at the Electric Daisy Carnival. The EMS operations have to be very advanced to serve the medical needs of the festival — I witnessed clinical issues that I had never before seen in my 30-year EMS career serving a metropolitan area.

Prevent Medical ran the command center for the event and provided infrastructure for communications and EMS operations. Prevent Medical collaborated with a local EMS agency that provided on-the-ground medical services.

The medical site had 70 beds and 6 critical care areas, as well as specialized equipment to treat the most common complaints. A majority of care is administered onsite without having to transport to the hospital.

Communication solutions

“Communications is the backbone of every single thing that we're doing,” said Cody.  

Prevent Medical draws on a range of solutions to support communications during events. They use FirstNet for priority and preemption, which is especially critical in connecting first responders inside the fog of crowds.

Some of the FirstNet technologies used at the festival include:

• FirstNet push-to-talk for one-click communication
• LMR to LTE interoperability to connect radios and smartphones
• Deployables like a SatCOLT, multiple Compact Rapid Deployables, and a Cell Booster Pro to boost coverage in the field and in the command center
• Computer-aided dispatch on FirstNet-enabled tablets in their side-by-side vehicles to stay connected while on calls

Planning is key

For EMS services supporting large events like the Electric Daisy Carnival, planning is key to success.

“There really is no downtime when it comes to the large-scale events,” said Cody. “For the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, we start meeting the week after the event to do an after-action meeting, and then we’re already diving into the next planning phase. We continually rinse, lather, repeat each year.”

As a federal agency serving the public safety community, the FirstNet Authority offers operational support at no cost to agencies. Our services include operational support workshops, pre-incident and event planning, post-incident and event reviews, and exercise planning. These engagements help agencies to incorporate FirstNet for better communications.

To learn more about how FirstNet is helping public safety and the EMS community to leverage innovative public safety communications, sign up for the EMS Take with Jon Olson.