How to do bathrooms at your event - a guide for event planners!

An event planners guide to planning bathrooms.

In our business of luxury bathroom rentals and my previous job in plastic porta potties we meet generally speaking 2 types of clients.  Some clients begrudgingly rent our bathrooms because they need it, or their venue requires it.  However, event planners worth their weight in gold know that beneath the glitz and glamour of a table setting or an awesome live band and possibly the most important service in the event are the bathrooms.    Today we'll be talking about how to make sure your event bathrooms get the job done and don't grind your event to a halt. 

Bathrooms are a crucial part to your event

If you're reading this article you likely already understand this but bathrooms are more important than almost anything else at your event.  Why?  Bathrooms are actually quite scarce and without them guests cannot attend an event for long.  Think of some other services you might book for your event and ask yourself what would you do without them.  Lets say the event catering doesn't show up, what do you do?  Order food, or go without it; people can survive a month or more without food and several days without water, but how long can they last without using the bathroom?   What if the DJ/Entertainment cannot attend, perhaps you can rent some speakers and play some tunes or get a karaoke night going.  What happens if the bathrooms don't show up?  Guests get angry, leave and the event is over.  Unlike most of the other event services bathrooms are not easily replaced.  You cannot simply call up and have a bathroom delivered like you would a pizza or even purchase a ready to go bathroom from your local retailer.  Bathrooms need to be right the first time.  I recommend dedicating a good amount of time to selecting the perfect bathroom company and model that fits your needs.  Look at the companies' reputation, ask your other event services if they've worked with the company previously and gauge how responsive that company is to your questions.  Portable restroom rentals is primarily a service based business, if the service isn't up to par you should think of someone else.

The perfect location for your bathroom

One of the most challenging aspects that most event planners deal with is placing the bathrooms in a location that is ideal for their clients/guests.  Some event planners unfortunately try to place the bathrooms in the most inconvenient location for their guests or place the bathrooms too close to where the bathrooms are a focal point of the event.  I personally feel that your event bathrooms shouldn't be seen and especially not heard.  Bathrooms should be placed on level ground that would be easy for your guests to traverse to get to the bathrooms without tripping, have some signage made up if the bathrooms are not in an obvious spot.  Make sure to have adequate lighting on the path to the bathroom if your event is held at night. If your event is on multiple levels, place the most bathrooms in the location where most of your guests will spend the most amount of time.  If renting a luxury restroom trailer like one of ours please keep in mind how these bathrooms must traverse your venue to get to your chosen spot.  Make sure that the entire course is free from obstacles. 

Never underestimate the amount of bathrooms

Second only to not having any bathrooms at all is not having enough bathrooms for your guests.  There unfortunately have been many times when event planners will lie to us about a guest count or underestimate how many attendees they'll have for their event.  The real problem with underestimating your bathroom needs is compounded by how difficult it is to get more bathrooms on the day of.  It's truly challenging and expensive for any bathroom rental agency to provide your event extra bathrooms on the day of the event.   We recommend having a bathroom to guest ratio of 50 guests per bathroom stall.  If space / budget is a concern you might be able to push it to 100 guests per bathroom assuming you use a janitorial / bathroom attendant during the event to keep the bathrooms clean, manage bathroom lines, and keep toilet paper restocked and the garbage empty.    There are many services to help you manage your bathrooms from our restroom attendants to gig hire companies like WeWork, Task Rabbit, Craigslist "Gigs" section, and temp hire agencies.  Bathroom attendants are quite cheap and worth their fee when you compare their cost to increasing stall counts or having your guests use filthy bathrooms.  Still not sure about the stall count?  You can not only hire luxury bathrooms from us but rent some plastic porta potties as backups just in case.  

Enhance your bathroom Rental

Nothing shows you care more than to put your own finish to your bathroom rentals.  Little decor enhancements on the interior or exterior can really add to your guests experience.  An easy add-on is a toiletries' basket.  These baskets are filled with common bathroom items from floss, deodorant, and feminine hygiene products.   Enhance the exterior of your bathrooms by providing your guests with a lounge area for them to wait for their loved ones or even to wait in line for the bathroom.   Consider renting a privacy fence, or drapery to conceal your bathrooms and give your guests privacy, it also helps keep your restroom trailer rental out of the photos.  Most of our bathrooms have ample room between each stall, you could probably place a projector there to entertain guests in the bathroom cue. 

Talk to your restroom rental agency

When in doubt, talk to your restroom rental agency to iron out any kinks, and listen to their advice.  Spend the time to attend the delivery, connect with them to get an ETA, go to their business location and look at their equipment.  Be proactive and if the company you worked with last time could have done a better job, try another company or voice your concerns.  As an owner of a service based business our goal is your complete satisfaction.