It’s always special when a lot of people can get together and celebrate at a special event. There’s something especially unique about an event that’s held outside, though. If you’ve been tasked with planning an outdoor party or festival, here are a few tips to ensure the event is smooth and successful.
Have Adequate Security
Any time a large number of people are gathered together, the potential exists for something dangerous to happen. That’s why it’s important to have adequate security coverage for the duration of your event. Pay close attention to your expected crowd size, and then do your best to recruit twice as much security as you think you’ll need.
This doesn’t just mean grabbing a few burly, intimidating-looking guys, though that’s definitely helpful. This means you need to hire some off-duty police officers who are experienced in crowd control and de-escalating a tense situation. This ensures that minor scuffles won’t quickly spiral out of control.
Take Care of Your Volunteers
Your volunteers are the backbone of what will make your event successful. It’s important, then, to show them just how much you appreciate them by taking care of them during and after the event. Provide them with plenty of food and drink, and try to keep their shifts as sort as possible to prevent burnout from whatever repetitive task they are assisting with. After the event is over, if you can, personally let each volunteer know how much you appreciate them, and acknowledge their contributions by asking for their feedback to help make the next event go even better.
Have Adequate Facilities
Whether you’re in an area that doesn’t have any established facilities, or you realize that the size of your event will overwhelm existing facilities at the venue, bringing in extra toilets is a wise planning decision, like those offered by Road Runner Waste Service Inc. Having adequate restroom facilities will ensure that you don’t overwhelm any existing facilities, a condition which could ultimately result in a breakdown. Plus, you ensure that lines don’t get too long, so attendees can enjoy the parts of the festival they actually came for.
Keep It Simple
Unless you have some unbelievably extraordinary volunteers, try to keep the events and activities at your festival as simple as possible. Most attendees won’t be able to appreciate a complex activity when they’re competing with a hundred other people to do the same activity.
For example, if you’re planning a family festival, and one of the areas will involve art, don’t plan for a complicated art project that requires lots of steps and requires attendees to retrieve their project later. Instead, think of something that will look great, but won’t require many steps, will be easy to explain, and doable for just about anyone.
Enjoy Your Day
While you’ll probably be busy on the day of the event, it’s still important to step back and enjoy the results of all your hard work. You’ll never truly know what’s working or not unless you go around and enjoy some of the activities for yourself. Plus, you don’t want to remember this day you’ve been looking forward to for so long as just a big blur of busyness, anyway, but as an enjoyable memory that you’re proud you were involved with.
