Event planning can be stressful, especially when it comes to working out how many portable toilets you’ll need to provide to ensure that there are enough facilities to cater for your attendees without blowing a big hole in your budget.
As portable toilet rental specialists, Letloos are experts in helping event organisers get the right number of portable toilets for their outdoor events. Read on for our comprehensive guide, designed to help you estimate the number of portable toilets you’ll need as well as give you a few other tips to ensure you have everything you need for a successful outdoor gig, family-focused gathering or community fete.
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Number of event attendees
The amount of portable toilets you’ll need depends on the number of attendees you’re expecting and how long the event is likely to last. If you’ve already got the number of ticket sales or a good idea of how many people your event is going to attract, then this is a good starting point to help you get an idea of the number of portable toilet facilities you’ll need to provide.
A general rule of thumb for an event set to last no more than six hours is one toilet per 450 male guests and one toilet for 100 female guests, but this will increase by 25% if it’s a longer event, for example, a two-day festival, or if food and alcohol is on offer which we’ll discuss in the next section of this guide.
Event type matters
Believe it or not, the number of toilets you’ll need doesn’t just depend on the number of people you expect to attend your event – event type matters too!
For those events that will be serving food and alcohol, look to increase the number of portable toilet facilities you’ll need by 15 to 30 percent as the amount of fluids consumed will have an effect on the amount of times each person needs to visit the facilities.
Alcohol is well-known to irritate the bladder and bowels, so if the drinks are flowing freely, you’ll need to ensure that you have an adequate amount of toilets to service the needs of your attendees. Guests who won’t take too kindly to having to wait in long queues to use the toilets.
For events that are more family orientated, then not only will you need to ensure that you have enough toilet facilities, but you’ll also need to consider hiring some baby changing facilities too as many families may have little ones joining them for a day out, and the ability to change their child in a hygienic and private setting is a must.
Luckily, Letloos can help with your baby change needs as well as also providing toilet facilities for elderly or disabled guests too. These portable disabled toilet and baby change units are much larger than our standard portable toilets making them easier to access for disabled guests and give ample room of changing little ones with a fold out changing table fixed to the wall.
Catering concerns
Although we’ve already discussed food and alcohol as things that will increase the number of portable toilets needed for your event, food festivals that place an emphasis on eating a plethora of tempting offerings may need a few extra units as time goes on. An extra 10% on top of your portable toilet estimate will help stop longer queues during busy periods and ensure that your guests don’t turn to event staff or social media to blast your event for not having enough toilet facilities.
Location, location, location
Another thing that you’ll need to consider when planning the right amount of toilet facilities is the location the units will be placed in.
Many events split the male and female toilet facilities to avoid confusion and have clusters of toilets for both male and female visitors in different locations around the event area. This works well as it stops large queues in just one area that can cause bottlenecks and gives guests plenty of places to spend a penny no matter where they are on the event site.
One thing to avoid would be putting toilet facilities too close to tree lines or bushes as it may encourage attendees that have been enjoying the beer tent a little too much to head off into the undergrowth instead, something that’s neither hygienic nor acceptable for any event that already has plenty of portable toilet facilities available fom them to use instead.
Also, many quests will pop to the loo before heading off to get a drink or bite to eat, so it’s a good idea to have some portable toilets situated close by any catering vans or food stalls.
Don’t forget about hygiene!
When it comes to outdoor events, hygiene is another important factor that you’ll need to consider. It’s all well and good providing ample toilet and baby change facilities, but your guests will also expect to be able to wash their hands after visiting the facilities.
This is why you’ll want to provide several hand wash stations at your event so that everyone has the opportunity to keep their hands hygienic and clean without having to be weighted down by carrying their own antibacterial hand gels or wipes.
Our commercial hand sanitizer stations provide sanitation gel which allows guests to quickly remove dirt and germs from their hands without the need for a water source. These stations stand at 1.5 metres tall and can also be filled at the base to avoid them being toppled over by festival-goers and offer a quick way for event guests to maintain cleanliness and personal hygiene.
Killing 99.9% of all germs and bacteria, these stations are perfect for all event types and can service four visitors at a time so you won’t need to provide paper hand towels that can potentially harm the environment and leave a large amount of litter once the event has come to a close. Tags: portable toilets for events, commercial hand sanitizer stations, portable baby changing facilities.
