How to Get the Right Number of Portable Toilets for Your Event

If you are hosting a large outdoor event, you’ll need to look into portable toilet rental. You’ll have many decisions to make to get the right set-up for your event, but one of the most important is deciding how many units to get. Most of us have been to outdoor festivals and fairs and wound up standing in long lines for the facilities. It’s annoying for anyone, but for families with young children, the elderly or anyone with a medical condition that leaves them needing the restroom urgently, it can be a real nightmare. For the sake of your guests’ comfort, it is important to make sure you have enough toilet units.

At the same time, putting on a big event can run up some big bills, and you don’t want to add unnecessary expense by getting too many portable toilet units. So it is important for your budget to have a realistic idea of how many units are appropriate for your event. While most companies providing portable toilet rentals should be able to guide you, there are some variables to consider.

When to Get Extra Portable Toilets

• Small children, the elderly and people with certain medical conditions simply cannot wait as long as most people can to use the restroom. If your guests will include several young families or elderly people, it makes sense to add an extra toilet. In fact, it makes sense to get a larger than average unit such as one that meets ADA criteria, and even post a notice that it is reserved for small children and the elderly.
• If you are serving alcohol, your guests will be making more frequent visits to the restrooms and an extra unit or two will help make the event a success.
• If your event is spread over a very large area, it may make sense to have more than one restroom area set up, and that will mean extra units. Each restroom area should have at least two units.
• The length of the event affects the number of units needed as much as the number of people does. A longer event will need more units. As a general rule of thumb, it makes sense to include one extra unit per hour after the first three or four hours. An event with fewer than 250 people that lasts less than four hours will require three or four units, depending on the circumstances above, but the same number of people at a six-hour event would need five or six units.