Gough & Kelly, a leading provider of security products and services, has chosen Storm’s push-to-talk over cellular technologies for managing critical communications at large-scale events and music shows across the UK.

The West Yorkshire-based company provides venue security, event security and crowd management services that are robust yet customer friendly and designed to create the best possible audience experiences.

Gough & Kelly operatives use Storm devices fitted with multi-SIM cards for instant communications with individual and groups of colleagues, overcoming the bandwidth challenges normally associated with large crowds of people when both mobiles and two-way radios can fail. Storm’s push-to-talk system has availability of 99.999 per cent, the gold standard for cellular networks.

Gough & Kelly has already used Storm for events in Leeds, Sheffield and London, including at the official London New Year’s Eve 2023, a sellout fireworks display along the Victoria Embankment which attracted more than 100,000 paying visitors and millions of viewers online and on TV.

Nathan Appleby, events operations manager at Gough & Kelly, said: “Impressive PTT devices, I had the opportunity to use them in London at the New Years Eve firework display, where cellular signal is known to be a challenge on the night. All our team members found them easy to use and the Storm platform performed well for us. We are keen to roll out this solution for more contracts in the near future.”

Gough & Kelly clients include Leeds United Football Club, Castleford Tigers, universities and local authorities for city centre festivals and Christmas markets.

Luke Wilkinson, founding director of Storm, said: “We are delighted to be working with Gough & Kelly and to be able to demonstrate why Storm is becoming the partner of choice for security companies looking after the safety of many thousands of people at major events.”

Reliable, instant communication plays a critical role in the security sector. It is crucial to ensuring a timely response to emergencies, to sharing information and for the coordination and collaboration of operatives across different teams. It helps to provide real-time updates and enhances decision making, ultimately increasing the effectiveness of security operations.