PortaPottyBossPro Blog — Event Rentals & Booking

Placement Notes for Event Porta Potties: Every Unit in the Right Spot on the Grounds

A porta potty in the right spot is invisible. A porta potty in the wrong spot is the first thing everyone notices: in the wedding photos, blocking a food truck, on the lawn the host spent all spring growing, or a long walk from the seating area. Placement notes are how you get it right the first time, even when the driver has never seen the venue.

The Most Important Line on an Event Job

Service visits at a festival, as covered in Mid-Event Service at Multi-Day Festivals: Pumping Porta Potties While the Gates Are Open, depend on the driver knowing where every bank is. So does every event delivery. On a construction job, the super can tell the driver where to drop the unit. On an event job, nobody may be there when the truck arrives. The placement note is the only instruction the driver has.

Where Placement Notes Show Up

In PortaPottyBossPro, every job carries the unit type, the quantity, the unit numbers and the placement notes. They show under the address on the office lists and on the driver's phone. The driver reads them before they get out of the truck. The dispatcher sees them when building the day. Nobody has to call the host from the curb to ask where the units go.

The same note serves the pickup driver and anyone running a service visit during the event. On a three-day festival, the person who sets the units on Thursday may not be the person who services them on Saturday or picks them up on Monday. One clear note, written once, keeps all three on the same page.

What a Good Placement Note Includes

A placement note should answer every question a driver would ask:

• Where exactly: "behind the white barn," "left side of the parking lot," "on the concrete pad by the pavilion"
• What surface: gravel, pavement, grass, and what to avoid
• Which way the doors face
• How far apart, or in a row
• What not to block: fire lanes, gates, food trucks, walkways
• What the driver can and cannot drive on to get there
• Where ADA units and hand wash stations go relative to the standard units

Write it so a new driver could follow it. If you have to explain it again on the phone, the note was not specific enough.

Ask the Right Questions at Booking

The office writes the placement note, so the office needs the answers. Ask the host or planner during booking:

• Where are the ceremony, the tent, the stage, the food and the seating?
• Where will guests walk?
• Where should units definitely not go?
• Are there sprinkler heads, septic fields, soft ground or underground lines?
• Is there a site map or a photo they can send?

If the customer sends a photo or a drawing, turn what it shows into words in the placement note. A clear written description saves the driver from guessing.

Notes for Large Events

For a festival or fair with several banks, write one note per bank, in the order the driver will set them. Use landmarks the driver will see, not names only the organizer knows. "Bank B by the food trucks" means nothing if the food trucks are not there yet on Thursday. "Bank B, east fence line, 50 yards south of the blue water tower" works whether or not the trucks have arrived.

The unit numbers on each job also help on large events. If you assign unit numbers before delivery, you know exactly which units went to which bank.

Photos Back Up the Note

When the driver sets the units, they take photos in the driver app, and those photos stay on the job. If the host calls Friday night saying the units are in the wrong place, the office can look at the photos and the placement note side by side. Usually it is a simple fix. Sometimes the photos show the units are exactly where the note said, and the plan changed. Either way, you know what happened.

Photos also help the pickup driver find units at a big site, and they are the starting point for next year's placement note.

Gate and Access Notes Are Separate

Placement tells the driver where the units go. Access tells them how to get in. Keep gate codes, key locations, "enter from the back road" and venue hours in the site's gate and access notes, and the day-of contact as a site contact. We cover contacts in Event Site Contacts: Who the Driver Calls When the Venue Gate Is Locked.

Save the Note for Next Year

Many event customers come back. A placement note that worked this year, with photos, is ready for next year. Keep it on the site record, and when the customer rebooks, you start with what worked. For more on event bookings, visit the event porta potty rental software page.