Sail Grand Prix is an international sailing competition featuring national teams racing high-speed hydrofoil F50 catamarans in various cities around the world including Long Beach, San Francisco and New York among others. This year, PopUP CleanUP was commissioned to clean for the Long Beach leg of the multi-city competition where NorthStar Canada won, skippered by Giles Scott.
What makes Sail Grand Prix unique is that the boats are built on-site for at least a week or tow before the actual weekend race. So we provided pre, live, and post event cleaning throughout the port berth and stadium. The event venue was carved into various areas: race stadium, tech site, media center, and adrenaline lounge. Pre and post race days required 2-4 cleaning crew members. Race days we supplied about 18 with overlapping shifts, one of which was an on-site general manager who roamed the premises making sure everything got done and there was a clear chain of command.
For bigger events with multiple sections, we have found that having one manager with supervisors in each section makes communication better and creates a more efficient chain of command. Most of the cleaning involved trash maintenance and making sure that compost, recycling and refuse were separated since Sail GP takes environmental stewardship seriously. As part of our onboarding process, we answered numerous questionnaires regarding sustainability initiatives and measures and how we could contribute as a business towards making their event zero waste.
Part of that ethos included committing to bringing our own reusable water bottles on site, providing environmentally sound cleaning solutions, and helping to make sure all the recyclable materials were disposed of in the appropriate dumpster.
The primary non-environmentally sound supply we dealt with were the trash bags themselves, which, in spite of strides made to create compostable trash bags, the reality is that most need specific industrial equipment in order to break down and even then, many facilities find that the bioplastic materials gum up their processing equipment.
We also provided ample amounts of sweeping and wiping down surfaces and maintained the restrooms throughout the setup, event and breakdown.
This was one of the best experiences we’ve ever had with a client who, in addition to including us in multiple pre-production meetings, was completely organized throughout the event.
PopUP CleanUP provides porter services and landfill diversion strategies for sporting competitions, branding activations, and other large scale events.
