Choose a provider with named leisure clients you can check, experience of the systems venues run on (EPOS, ticketing, CCTV and door entry), a clear answer on evening, weekend and event-day cover, and the ability to manage connectivity, WiFi, phones and mobiles as well as IT. Check their published response times and security certifications, and ask the ten questions below before you sign.
Seven things to look for
1. Venue experience you can check
Ask for named leisure clients, case studies and references from venues like yours. A provider that only supports offices may never have planned for a sold-out night.
2. Knowledge of venue systems
Tills, card terminals, ticketing and booking platforms, CCTV, door entry and access control all sit on your network. Your provider should support that network and work with each system's supplier when something breaks, so you don't have to.
3. A clear answer on out-of-hours cover
Your busiest times are evenings, weekends and holidays. Ask exactly what's covered outside office hours: monitoring, alerts, phone support and engineer attendance. Get it in writing, including any extra cost.
4. Security and payments
Ask how they protect card payment networks, whether they can help you towards Cyber Essentials, and how they handle starters and leavers. Check whether they hold Cyber Essentials Plus and ISO 27001 themselves.
5. One team for IT, connectivity and phones
When the internet, WiFi, phones and IT come from different suppliers, each can blame another when something fails on a busy night. One team with real expertise in each area makes faults quicker to fix.
6. Published response times
Ask for their average first response time and resolution rates, and how they're measured.
7. Room to grow
They should support new sites, temporary events, acquisitions and rising security requirements without starting from scratch.
Ten questions to ask an IT provider
- Which leisure or entertainment venues do you support, and can we speak to one?
- Do you support the network behind our EPOS, ticketing, CCTV and door entry?
- What cover do we get in the evenings, at weekends and on event days, and what does it cost?
- How will you keep card payments separate from guest WiFi?
- What happens if our internet fails in the middle of an event?
- How quickly can you set up and remove seasonal staff?
- Can you manage our WiFi, connectivity, phones and mobiles too?
- Have you checked our lines for the PSTN switch-off?
- What certifications do you hold?
- What does success look like after 12 months?
Signs you've outgrown your current IT provider
- Problems on busy nights aren't picked up until Monday
- Nobody can tell you which systems share the guest WiFi
- Suppliers blame each other when something fails
- Ex-staff still have working logins
- Every site is set up differently
- Nobody has mentioned the PSTN switch-off
- They don't understand how a venue works
Frequently asked questions
Do IT providers offer 24/7 support for venues?
It varies. Many providers, including us, run a daytime helpdesk and add 24/7 monitoring so faults are spotted at any hour. Engineer cover for evenings and events is often arranged separately. Ask exactly what's included and what costs extra.
How Indigo does this. Here are our answers. Indigo Unified Communications supports SWG3, Falkirk Football Club and Wonderworld Group, and we've been Celtic FC's official mobile supplier since 2022. Our helpdesk runs 09:00–17:00 Monday to Friday (08:30–17:30 on Platinum), with 24/7 monitoring on Gold, Platinum and Charity, and out-of-hours and event-day engineer cover by arrangement at extra cost. In September 2026 we handled 1,854 tickets with a 13-minute average first response, resolving 65% within two hours. We keep 95% of our clients, score 4.98/5 from post-ticket surveys and hold Cyber Essentials Plus, ISO 27001:2022 and ISO 9001:2015. Read our case studies for SWG3, Falkirk FC and Wonderworld.
"Since moving to Indigo, Kenny and the team have provided us with a new level of support, comfort, and confidence in our 'round the clock' reliance on IT and connectivity." Bob Jahavari, Operations Director, SWG3
Sources: Indigo service desk data, September 2026 · DSIT, Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025/2026, 30 April 2026.
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