The saying is that you learn more from your failures than your successes, but no one putting on an event wants their event to fail. Still, sometimes in spite of your best intentions, things don’t go quite as planned. Here are some scenarios you might not have considered that can make your best laid plans go awry.
Crowd Control
In a number of instances, PopUP CleanUP has been contracted to provide cleaners but once the event has gotten underway, it has been impossible for us to do an adequate job due to packed crowds. At one street fair, the client had enclosed beer gardens where they were handing out free beer. There was no one restricting the number of people into the garden which was a recipe for disaster. As a result, our crew member was bottlenecked inside the garden, barely able to move, and effectively unable to bus the tables and pick up trash. During a concert held in a berth in San Pedro, our cleaners struggled to thread through the crowds to change out trash liners in cardboard bins and get the trash to a golf cart that patrolled the perimeter. At the end of the night, there were enough shoes and hats strewn over the parking lot to fill a store. Having enough time to reset the venue became an issue because there wasn’t enough time and access during the event to remove all the debris.
Dumpster Space
At that same concert, we had one crew member stationed inside—yes, you read that right, INSIDE—the 30 cubic yard rolloff, breaking down cardboard boxes and smashing together trash bags to maximize space. After that, a forklift crushed what had been inside the dumpster to compress the garbage fully. During a weekend with almost 30,000 attendees, we filled over ten 30 cubic yard dumpsters in this manner and still had debris left over.
During the same weekend, a luxury brand event with 4000 attendees, we recommended 374 cubic yards of refuse, recycling, and compost space. The client opted to go with 273 cubic yards. We had to scramble last minute to secure additional rolloffs and have them removed (more on this below). The client wound up using almost 333 cubic yards of space.
Not only making sure that your event has more dumpster cubic yardage available than you think you’ll need, but also making sure that those dumpsters and roll-offs are packed properly to take advantage of every square Inch can make all the difference. The last thing you want is to have piles of bags cluttering the venue on either side of the dumpster or having the dumpster overflow. Not only will a dumpster company not haul away an overflowing container, but also, they will not haul the overflow amount. In one instance, the trash hauler left the bags and boxes piled to the side of the dumpster and within 24 hours, all that trash was strewn around the outdoor lot. The company who hired us had to have us come back to clean up the subsequent mess.
If you have overfilled your dumpster, one troubleshoot is to find a mom and pop trash hauler to come in and scoop out some of the trash from the dumpster and haul a portion of it away. While this isn’t always the most logistically smooth or cost effective manner (having more cubic yardage on site at the very get-go avoids this necessity), it’s a last minute hack to solve the problem.
On-Site Organization
For bigger events with many moving parts, having a dedicated tent, room, or closet for all the janitorial supplies and a dedicated place for the cleaning staff to sign in and operate from helps from a logistical standpoint. On several events, although we have supplied vacuums, wet mops, cleaning solutions and essential equipment and supplies, we have been told by the event producer that none of these items were there. Yet once we had a supervisor or manager on site, we found that our supplies had either been taken by other people and relocated elsewhere, or, on rare occasions, stolen. It’s not uncommon for other departments to want to borrow supplies, but having a dedicated space where the cleaning company’s supplies go separate from the production company’s and having a place where everyone can sign in and return to to get instructions can streamline operations.
Uniforms can be a part of that organization from the standpoint of showing people know who the cleaners are so that they can easily be found. On several occasions at a recent event, our leads were being told no one was in certain areas while the lead was standing in that very same area. The issue was that all staff were given the same shirt and no one knew who the cleaners were.
Of course, the most important part of any event cleaning site plan is communication and often janitorial providers are brought in as tangential at the last moment. Bringing PopUP CleanUP on board early to collaborate in meetings, understand the venue, the production build out, the amount of food and beverages and site geometry is the surefire way to set the entire event up for success.
