Case Study: IBM iX achieves real-time footfall visualisation at Vivid Sydney with RUCKUS Networks SPoT location technology

IBM iX - Customer Case Study

Ruckus Wireless partnered with IBM to power the “Heart of the City” installation at Vivid Sydney, the Southern Hemisphere’s largest light festival (1.43 million attendees). IBM needed accurate, real‑time location analytics and proven wireless capacity across a 600–700,000 m² high‑density outdoor environment under a tight multi‑week timeline and with restrictive mounting requirements.

Ruckus delivered a cloud‑hosted SPoT positioning engine plus ZoneFlex access points, bridges and a ZoneDirector controller, using BeamFlex and SmartMesh to overcome mounting limits; the network was deployed within three days and calibrated in about eight hours. The system produced real‑time heat maps and analytics (over 750,000 devices detected, average dwell ~12 minutes, four installations visited on average), halved development time and provided consistent high‑density coverage.

IBM iX

Kurt Solarte

Design and Delivery Lead