How many two-way radios do you actually need?

The question we get most often is some version of “we have 40 people, so we need 40 radios, right?” Almost never. Radios follow roles and channels, not headcount. Half your staff may never key up, and two of them may need a second unit on a different talkgroup.

Start with talkgroups, not people

Write down every group that needs to talk to each other without talking over everyone else. A typical trade show booth splits into build crew, show staff, and leadership. A festival splits much further — front of house, back of house, production, medical, security, and transport.

Each group becomes a channel. Now count who inside that group actually needs to transmit. Runners and supervisors do. Someone standing at a demo station for eight hours usually doesn’t.

Rules of thumb we use

• Trade show booth: one radio per supervisor, one per runner, one per entrance or dock position. Usually 25–40% of total booth staff.
• Festival or large event: one per role in every talkgroup, plus a cross-channel unit for anyone who bridges groups (ops leads, medical leads).
• Construction or venue build: one per crew lead, one per equipment operator, one per gate or lift position.
• Security: everyone. No exceptions — that’s the one group where a headcount match is correct.

Then add spares

Batteries get dropped in fountains. Units walk off with a departing shift. We include 10% spares at no charge on every order because we would rather stage extra units in Las Vegas than have you scrambling on day two of a five-day show.

What about range?

Fleet size and coverage are separate problems. If your footprint spans multiple halls, an outdoor lot, or several floors of a hotel, more handhelds won’t fix a coverage gap — a repeater will, or LTE push-to-talk radios that run over cellular instead of line-of-sight RF. Tell us the venue and we’ll tell you which one you need.

Not sure where you land? Send us your venue, your dates, and a rough org chart. We’ll come back with a fleet size and a channel plan, usually in under an hour.