Hotels and convention centers host an enormous number of events every year. It’s easy to assume their contracts, preferred vendors, and internet packages are fixed and non-negotiable.

But every event is unique—especially when it comes to internet services.

Whether you’re planning a seminar, conference, tradeshow, or product launch, internet access is mission critical to your event. Reliable WiFi and wired connectivity power admissions, exhibits, live presentations, demos, broadcasts, event apps, attendee access, and social media. When the internet doesn’t work, your event doesn’t work.

This guide walks through practical ways to secure internet services that are reliable, secure, and aligned with both your technical needs and budget when you’re operating in hotels and convention center spaces.

Review Internet Terms Before You Sign the Venue Contract

Once you’ve fallen in love with a venue, it’s tempting to sign quickly just to lock in dates and space. But before you sign anything, it’s essential to review the contract terms related to internet and IT services.

Standard contracts often:

  • Bundle the in-house or “incumbent” IT provider by default
  • Include exclusivity language that imply you are required to use the venue’s provider
  • Lock you into internet packages that don’t match your event’s actual needs

In most cases, you are not automatically required to use the venue’s incumbent provider for internet services. You can often bring in your own vendor—it just needs to be navigated properly.

Work with your procurement team and legal counsel to make sure:

  • You understand any exclusivity or “preferred vendor” clauses
  • You maintain the option to use an outside provider for internet and WiFi if desired
  • Fees or requirements for using an outside provider are clearly documented
  • Ensure any 3rd-party fees are reasonable ( It is not uncommon for the incumbent to try and charge more for doing nothing in an effort to force you to use them.)

If that flexibility isn’t there yet, this is the moment to negotiate it in—before you sign the contract.  If you have already signed the contract, it is important that you communicate with your venue contact to articulate the importance and need of using your preferred partner that will deliver a purpose-built network infrastructure, and one that the incumbent is not capable of providing.

Don’t Default to the Venue’s IT Provider

While the contract is still open for negotiation, take a close look at the internet and IT sections and consider consulting an expert.

An external specialist can help you:

  • Assess whether the venue’s infrastructure is adequate for your event
  • Identify gaps in reliability, redundancy, or security
  • Confirm whether you’re allowed to bring in your own provider

Many venue IT environments are designed for day-to-day basic operations and light meeting traffic. They’re often not built for high-performing, high-density event WiFi, complex demos, concurrent breakouts, or video streaming—and their services frequently come at a premium price.

If you’re considering an outside provider, share the relevant contract sections with them. They can:

  • Translate technical language into practical risk and impact
  • Recommend specific internet and WiFi requirements for your event
  • Suggest alternative approaches or pricing you can use in negotiations

Even if they stay in a consultative role, involving an experienced internet partner early on makes it easier to deliver the performance your event needs.

Compare the Costs

Before you sign, request a full list of services as well as a price sheet from the incumbent IT provider and review it in detail. 

Look at:

  • How internet bandwidth is packaged and priced
  • What’s included for attendee WiFi vs. production/back-of-house WiFi
  • Fees for cross-connects, VLANs, static IPs, custom SSIDs, or specific configurations
  • The ability for the incumbent to connect both wired and WiFi infrastructure into a seamless VLAN
  • On-site support hours and after-hours or “emergency” rates

This is when the venue wants your business the most, and the value of your event is clearest to them. Pricing and terms are often more flexible than they appear.

Then, compare that proposal to a quote from an independent event internet provider:

  • Are they delivering reliable, secure, scalable internet solutions, not just bandwidth?
  • Can they tailor the design to your actual use cases and risk tolerance?
  • Is the solution budget-conscious, or are you paying for features you don’t need while missing ones you do?

When you factor in the venue’s necessary charges for switch colocation and cross-connects alongside a dedicated partner’s services, it’s common to find that:

  • The total cost of a dedicated partner plus venue fees is often around half—or even less—than paying the incumbent to provide everything end to end, and
  • With the incumbent, you may still only get a fraction of the performance, coverage, and flexibility your event truly requires.

In other words, you can easily end up paying more for a solution that delivers, at best, “good enough” for about half of what you actually need—or pay less overall for a purpose-built solution that’s designed for 100% of your requirements.

A purpose-built internet solution can often deliver better performance and flexibility, while still controlling costs by right-sizing services to your event.

Prioritize Network Performance

The incumbent networks often don’t meet customer needs because they don’t have the infrastructure. For example, if a customer wants the WiFi networks to be integrated with the wired networks and they’re run by different companies, they can’t connect them. The result is that your phone can’t communicate with a server even if it’s in the same room. 

Other Things to Know About the Incumbent Provider

When you’re working in a large hotel or convention center, the “default” or incumbent provider often looks convenient on paper. In practice, there are a few structural limitations you should be aware of.

Separate providers for wired and WiFi
In many large venues, the wired and wireless networks are actually run by two different companies. That means:

  • Your wired production network and your WiFi network may sit on completely separate infrastructures.
  • There may be no seamless way to connect critical devices on WiFi to systems on wired Ethernet (and vice versa).
  • Simple requirements—like having a presenter’s laptop on WiFi talk to a wired server in the same room—can become complex or impossible without custom workarounds.

This can create unexpected friction for registration systems, demos, broadcast workflows, and anything that needs both wired and wireless components to “just work.”

Limited capability for large exhibitor and keynote builds
Incumbent providers are usually optimized for day-to-day hotel operations and small meetings, not large, complex event builds. As a result:

  • They often do not have adequate staff to deploy extensive floor-based Ethernet cabling throughout big exhibitor halls.
  • They typically cannot deliver true high-density WiFi in large exhibit spaces, arenas, or high-profile keynote sessions.
  • Their designs and hardware are usually tuned for basic connectivity, not for thousands of concurrent devices, heavy streaming, live demos, and app adoption.

If your event relies on a large show floor, big-name keynote, or arena-style experience, this gap shows up quickly.

Basic utility WiFi at premium prices
In many cases, the venue’s WiFi is:

  • Provided by a third-party company focused on basic utility internet access, not high-performance event WiFi.
  • Free tiers that offer sub–5 Mbps service—fine for checking email, but not for modern event apps, streaming, or enterprise workflows.
  • Paid tiers that may still be limited to 10 Mbps or less per connection, while being sold at a significant premium, sometimes totaling tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars across a large event.

You can end up paying high event rates for a WiFi experience that doesn’t match the expectations of your attendees or your sponsors.

Additional contracts and hidden infrastructure costs
 In some venues, the incumbent provider:

  • Requires a separate contract to run low-voltage Ethernet, often through the venue’s designated electrical contractor.
  • Adds substantial costs for every additional drop, run, or change—even when you’re still within the same space and time frame.

These layered contracts and fees can quickly inflate the cost of delivering the wired infrastructure your exhibitors, production teams, and partners actually need.

Slow, ticket-based support and no embedded staff
Finally, support models are often geared towards basic event support, not major production environments:

  • Support is typically delivered via a phone call center or email/ticket system.
  • Response times can range from several minutes to an hour or more, and remediation can take even longer.
  • It’s common for the incumbent provider to not embed technical staff on-site dedicated to your event.

For a live show where every minute counts, this model can leave your team waiting while registration lines back up or a general session runs into issues.

Look for Purpose-Built Network Solutions

When you work with a specialized event internet provider, you’re not just buying a circuit—you’re getting a purpose-built internet solution and a team that understands live events.

Instead of plugging your show into a generic venue package, a purpose-built approach means:

  • Internet and WiFi are designed around your event’s footprint, format, and risk profile.
  • Coverage is planned for general sessions, breakouts, back-of-house, registration, exhibitors, production, and VIP areas.
  • Reliability, security, redundancy, and performance are all part of the core design—not afterthoughts.
  • The solution is right-sized so you’re not over- or under-buying services.
  • There are still touchpoints with the incumbent provider—switch colocation, fiber and copper Ethernet cross-connects, and other handoffs—so having a true technical partner to manage and navigate these details is critical.

This kind of design focuses on what your event actually needs to succeed: mission-critical systems that stay online, attendee experiences that feel premium, and technical teams who aren’t fighting the infrastructure all week.

Expect a Dedicated Team, Not Just an Account Manager

Most venues provide an account manager who will send you pricing and coordinate basic logistics. They may be juggling multiple events across multiple properties.

For mission-critical internet services, you need more than that.

A dedicated event internet partner should provide:

  • A clear point of contact focused on your event
  • Project and program management from planning through teardown
  • Direct access to network engineers and field technicians
  • A documented communication and escalation plan for live days

Crucially, a dedicated provider will assign staff to each critical service area instead of parking everyone in a back office waiting for tickets. That often means having technicians physically positioned in places like:

  • The exhibitor hall
  • Convention center floor levels
  • Keynote and general session spaces
  • Training rooms and breakout areas
  • Registration, help desk, and other high-traffic locations

Because they are embedded in these locations, they can see issues in real time and respond within seconds—often spotting and fixing problems before anyone on your team has time to open a ticket.

By contrast, the incumbent model usually looks like this:

  1. Your team notices a problem in the room.
  2. Someone calls or emails the support center to open a ticket.
  3. The ticket is queued and processed, which can take minutes to an hour or more.
  4. A technician is finally dispatched to the affected area.
  5. Only then can they begin to assess what’s actually happening.

In a live general session, a busy exhibit hall, or a registration rush, that delay can feel endless. Having embedded, area-specific staff from a dedicated provider is one of the most powerful ways to reduce risk and keep your event running smoothly.

If you want a knowledgeable internet partner that will be fully dedicated to your event, while saving money and providing a purpose-built system, contact Backstage Networks today.