Recently we serviced a soap box race at a state capital that expected 20-40,000 people. The client originally requested 94 hours of labor from 13 cleaners with the following schedule:
Saturday Live Event Cleaning:
General Admission (1) supervisor 11:00am-5:00pm. (6 hours)
General Admission (1) supervisor 9:00am-5:00pm (8 hours)
General Admission (6) crew members 11:00am-5:00pm (6 hours)
VIP (1) supervisor 11:00am-5:00pm (6 hours)
VIP (1) crew Member 11:00am-5:00pm (6 hours)
VIP (3) crew members 9:0am-5:00pm (8 hours)
Sunday Post-Event CleanUP:
(1) Supervisor & (3) Crew to work 9:00am – 1:00pm (4) hours
So to start, 20-40K people is a very wide range. It might be difficult to pin down how many people are going to show up and what your cleaning needs would be, but there is a significant difference in terms of cleaning needs when you add twenty thousand more people to your attendance.
Here is what was actually needed:
Saturday Live Event Cleaning:
General Admission (1) supervisor 9:30am-7:00pm (9.5 hours)
General Admission (1) supervisor 8:00am-6:30pm (10.5 hours)
General Admission (6) crew members 8:00am-6:30pm (10.5 hours)
VIP (1) supervisor 9:30am-7:00pm (9.5 hours)
VIP (1) crew Member 8:00am-6:30pm (10.5 hours)
VIP (3) crew members 9:30am-7:00pm (9.5 hours)
Sunday Post-Event CleanUP:
(1) Supervisor and (5) crew to work 10:00am – 2:00pm
So that’s 149.5 hours of labor instead of 94 hours.
At PopUP CleanUP, we usually recommend about 15 cleaners for the first 10-15,000 people for large scale outdoor events with food and beverage. For even more context, we were once asked to provide an estimate for the West Hollywood Pride Festival which draws around 100,000 people over the course of the entire weekend each year. For that estimate, for the Friday show, they requested twelve (12) cleaners for the daytime rehearsals and twenty-eight (28) during the evening concert. For the bigger event on Saturday which expected larger crowds, they wanted to staff thirty-four (34) cleaners.
WeHo Pride occurs in the West Hollywood Park which is about 1.9 square miles. The soap box race held on a 1 mile obstacle course and an estimated 50K people actually attended.
Overall, the event went well and we were thrilled to support such a fun competition! The organizers want the racers to prototype wacky and creative rides. So from soda cans to tomatoes to mini pink Cadillacs, the participants did not disappoint! However, our crew worked nonstop and it became challenging to keep up with the overflowing trash bins, especially as crowds often gathered around them, making the trash difficult to reach and clean efficiently. Because the dumpsters were located far from the activity area, trash runs were more time-consuming than anticipated. Overall the takeaway was we needed more crew members onsite but with added time and more post-event staffing, still left the site clean.
