Vodafone dishes out free eSIMs to Glastonbury festival goers

Framed as an ‘eSIM network trial’, Glastonbury attendees are invited to scan one of the QR codes by the Vodafone Connect & Charge stand during the festival, or follow a link in the Official Glastonbury App, at which point they’ll be given 50GB data, 500 minutes and 500 texts for a week.

Since it’s done through eSIM technology, users won’t have to change their number or swap their SIM card and can instead switch to Vodafone’s network through their device settings.

Vodafone reckons data consumption will rise above 215 terabytes during the festival, and it has deployed 10 masts and five small cells around the festival site. “Vodafone’s increased capacity will ensure it delivers an incredible network experience,” boasts the release.

Vodafone also developed the Glastonbury app which as well as granting access to the free data has map pinning, Spotify integration.

“As The Nation’s Network, we want to connect the nation to the people and the things they love, and our Glastonbury network trial is just one way we are doing this,” said Rob Winterschladen, Consumer Director for Vodafone UK. “We know how important it is for festivalgoers to stay connected, so they can contact their friends and share content that captures their favourite moments across the weekend. Our eSIM network trial will offer non-Vodafone customers the chance to trial our network if they can’t connect to their own provider and, with Vodafone delivering the most capacity ever at Worthy Farm, we will offer them a compelling network experience.”

Perhaps if you’ve gone to the trouble of concentrating capacity into a specified area for a finite amount of time with a bunch of small cells and temporary masts, there’s little downside to dishing out some of it gratis to the festival attendees that you know will be wandering around within its radius for the duration.

Vodafone is planning on rolling this offer out to other events throughout the summer, including Wimbledon, Boardmasters Festival and Kendal Calling. Presumably the hope is that the various attendees are so enamoured with the free service they get during that time that they switch over permanently – so that may pivot off how well the trials perform.