Media for wi-fi over a wide area - help needed.

wi-fi over a wide area - help needed.

I need to provide wireless internet access to a large green field site (only a couple of buildings on site) - it's a 4 day festival of around

5000 people, most of whom will camp, and I think only a very small proportion would use the facility.

We're starting from absolute scratch in providing this facility, and will even be installing a new phone line for broadband.....at this point I have two options,

I can provide internet access to artists and VIPs only, using a standard 'home' wireless router - it would only need to cover a house sized area with no brick walls to pass through. I think the maximum users would be 2 or 3 at once.....this is the easy option, and one I'm very comfortable with.

I can provide wi-fi to the full site (around 50 acres), from some advice I've already had, I think I can run this from a wireless router using a bridge and a powerful aerial.

What is there to stop me doing option 2? I have a couple of worries...

I'm not sure how many people will use the service, so guess that speed may be an issue if there are too many users (although I think it will be used mainly for email).

I'm concerned that we may need a very robust router - is there a limit to the amount of users that can the service at once?

What's a realistic range for 802.11g (if this is standard we should go for)

What does the bridge do, and why do I need one?

cost (within reason) is not a massive issue, but I'd like to install it myself if possible.

Apologies for all the questions, and any help and advice would be very gratefully received.

Thanks Neil