On the bluegrass side, the four-day festival will host artists and bands such as Bela Fleck, Earl Scruggs, and the Yonder Mountain String Band.

And the high-tech side? Free wireless for everyone. The festival draws on the spirit of community, common at such events, to create a WiFi network available to every single person attending the annual event that takes place June 16th through 19th in the Colorado Rockies.

Supplying the connection for the 10,000 fans making the trek to Telluride will be ABEO Corporation. So bring your laptops and pack your Blackberries. At Telluride, WiFi is king.

To accomplish this, ABEO will be using its newly announced AgileAIR integrated mesh networking system.

“We’re going to be deploying a mesh network, a wireless mesh network using mesh routers,” ABEO marketing guru Bill Woods told Pollstar. “Mesh routers, in themselves, are not access points, but they provide wireless ethernet connectivity across a large area. You can hook up to 50 of these routers to cover areas that are literally miles in width.

“And we’re going to be providing WiFi access to all the festival goers who bring their laptop or their 802.11-capable PDAs, so they’ll be able to surf the Web, visit artist Web sites, buy Telluride Festival merchandise, e-mail, take digital photos, instant message – anything you would do with normal broadband connection they will have access to from the comfort of their blankets or sitting on the festival grounds.”

But providing free wireless for the masses is only one of ABEO’s tasks, for the same network bringing Net connections to the multitudes will also handle the event’s security surveillance cameras. All in all, the goal is to provide Telluride attendees as well as festival organizers with a robust wireless network capable of handling data, voice and video.

“One of the big advantages of using mesh technology is that you can actually wall-off certain parts of the network,” Woods said. “We can create a private network within the mesh that festival administrators can use.”

And that private network will be humming, with festival administrators relying on it for surveillance cameras, as well as access databases or provide phone communications via Voice Over Internet Protocols (VOIP).

When you think of it, a massive wireless network at a multi-day music festival is a no-brainer. By connecting festival goers via WiFi, the end result is more than just 10,000 people surfing the Web between performances, or emailing their friends back home. Instead, the audience, which in itself will be a temporary community numbering 10,000 citizens, will be transformed into 10,000 connected citizens.

And they’ll have plenty to connect to. Aside from the usual Web activities, they’ll be able to check band schedules, festival announcements and most importantly, grab the latest weather forecast.

“There will be an opening page (that concert-goers will connect to), then the next page will be the Planet Bluegrass Web site,” said Woods. “And on their Web site there will be daily lineups, activities that are going on in Telluride, but outside the festival venue. They have a lot of songwriter workshops, they have their troubadour competition, and [organizers] will be able to keep them updated as well.”

Woods also mentioned that, although there won’t be any registration process for users, the network will be protected by 256-bit AES encryption standards.

But one of the more fascinating aspects of ABEO’s operation is that the network is only temporary. The company will set up its wireless network 48 hours before the first band hits the stage, and then tear it down and move it out within 24 hours after the final encore. Like the community that will come together at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, the wireless network will exist for only a few days.

Which illustrates how far we’ve come in such a short time, for if such a project was attempted only a few years ago, you’d be talking miles of cable, tons of hardware and a week or more to set it all up.

While ABEO is responsible for the network, the company is relying on a few high-tech heavy hitters, including Firetide for the mesh routers as well as ValuePoint for the access points. Add 10,000 bluegrass fans, and this year’s Telluride Festival sets a new technological benchmark for events yet to come.