PortaPottyBossPro Blog — Event Rentals & Booking

Festival Porta Potty Bookings: Planning Units, Service and Pickup for Big Crowds

Festivals are the biggest single jobs most event operators take. A music festival, a food truck rally, a craft beer festival or a cultural celebration can tie up a large share of your units and several trucks for days. Done right, a festival is a big invoice and a customer who comes back every year. Done wrong, it is long lines, angry organizers and a social media thread you do not want to read.

Start the Conversation Early

If you have already worked through Booking Porta Potties for Weddings: What the Office Needs Before the Big Day, you know how much a good intake checklist helps. A festival needs the same thing, only bigger. Organizers often start planning months out, and they want a number from you early so they can set their budget.

Ask for the dates, the gates-open and gates-close times each day, the expected attendance, whether alcohol is served, whether there is overnight camping, and a site map if they have one. Ask who the operations contact is during the event, because that is the person your driver needs, not the marketing director who signed the contract.

Guidance on Unit Counts

Organizers will ask you how many units they need. Use the rule of thumb your company uses, adjusted for length of event, alcohol, food and whether people camp. Explain your reasoning so they understand it is not a sales pitch. If they want to go lower than you recommend, put your recommendation in writing on the estimate notes so there is a record. We cover how to talk through numbers in How Many Porta Potties Does an Event Need? How to Guide Your Customers.

Do not forget ADA accessible units and hand wash stations. Many festivals are on public land or permitted by a city or county that has its own requirements, so ask the organizer what their permit says.

Building the Estimate

Build the estimate from your service list: standard units, ADA accessible units, hand wash stations, maybe a restroom trailer for the VIP or artist area, delivery, each service visit during the event and pickup. Send it to the organizer, who approves it online. Once approved, the estimate becomes scheduled services, so the delivery, service visits and pickup are already on your books.

Large festivals often pay through an organization or a promoter. Collect a card on file or set the account up for an invoice with a deposit, depending on your policy and how well you know them.

Banks, Unit Numbers and Placement

A festival is not one placement note. It is several banks of units in different spots. Write placement notes the way a driver will read them:

• Bank A: 16 standard, 2 ADA, 4 hand wash, north gate, along the fence, doors facing the walkway
• Bank B: 10 standard, 1 ADA, 2 hand wash, beside the food truck row, east side
• Bank C: 8 standard, 1 ADA, 2 hand wash, camping area by the water spigot
• VIP: restroom trailer behind the main stage, level pad, power from the stage panel

The unit type, quantity and unit numbers show on each job card on the driver's phone along with these notes. If you assign unit numbers before the units go out, you also know exactly which units sat at the festival when they come back.

Staggered Delivery

For a large festival you may need more than one truck and more than one day to deliver. Split the delivery into separate jobs, one per truck or per bank, and put them on the dispatch board by day. Filter the board by truck to check that each driver has a realistic load, and use the route order so the first truck in sets the banks that are hardest to reach once vendors start setting up.

Service While the Gates Are Open

A festival that runs more than a day needs service. Schedule each service visit as its own job, ideally before the gates open each morning. On a big event you may also want a midday visit on the busiest day. The driver sees each visit on their phone with the bank locations, and the operations contact gets the on-the-way text so they can open the service gate. For more on this, see Mid-Event Service at Multi-Day Festivals: Pumping Porta Potties While the Gates Are Open.

Pickup and the Final Bill

After the festival, schedule the pickup jobs for the day after, or the morning after the last vendor leaves. Rental tracking records the delivered and picked-up dates, and if the organizer asks you to leave a bank an extra day for teardown crews, the extra days are added to the invoice at your per-day rate.

When the last unit is back, close it out: charge the card on file or send the invoice, and thank the organizer. Ask them to rate the service. A festival organizer talks to other organizers, and next year's booking starts with a good finish this year. To see how festivals fit with the rest of your event work, go back to the event porta potty rental software page.