Festival Season Event Restrooms in Beaufort: A Planning Guide

Festival season in Beaufort runs hot in July and picks back up in October. The Beaufort Water Festival fills the waterfront in July, and the Beaufort Shrimp Festival takes over downtown in October. Smaller fairs, church events and fundraisers book the same weekends, so event restrooms for those dates should be reserved weeks ahead.

Big community festivals line up their own vendors. This guide is for organizers of other events on the busy weekends: block parties, school fairs, fundraisers, races and private festivals.

A festival needs about one standard unit for every 200 guest-hours, so multiply guests by hours and divide by 200. A 1,000-guest event running 6 hours needs about 30 units. Add more when beer is served or the event runs past 8 hours, and plan mid-event service for any event longer than one day.

Run your own numbers on the porta potty calculator. Counts include the accessible units below.

A festival needs at least 5% of the portable units in each cluster to be accessible, with a minimum of one per cluster. A cluster of 20 units needs at least one ADA-style unit; a cluster of 30 needs two. Each ADA-style unit is about 87 inches square, so the spot needs flat ground and open truck access.

The 5% rule comes from section 213.2 of the 2010 ADA Standards. Put each wheelchair-accessible unit at the end of a row, on a firm, level path from the main walkway.

Hand wash stations should go at the end of each restroom row and next to every food and drink area. Plan about one hand wash station for every two to four toilets at a food festival. Each station has two foot-pump sinks and holds about 400 washes per fill, so long events need a refill visit.

See hand wash station details for size and refill info.

Festival restrooms need service whenever units near about 200 uses, which on a busy festival day can happen by mid-afternoon. A one-day event usually runs on fresh, stocked units. A two- or three-day event needs a pump-out and restock each night or early morning, before gates open, so guests never meet a full unit.

1. Before gates openUnits placed, sanitized and stocked the day before.
2. During the eventA volunteer checks paper and sanitizer every two hours.
3. Overnight serviceOur truck pumps, cleans and restocks between days on multi-day events.
4. Monday pickupUnits come off the site Monday at no extra charge.

A public event on city streets or parks in Beaufort usually needs a special event permit, and the permit plan often shows where restrooms go. Confirm the rules with the City of Beaufort before booking units. Events in unincorporated areas go through Beaufort County, and Port Royal events go through the Town of Port Royal.

Start at the City of Beaufort site and confirm with the permit office. We can send a unit list and a site sketch for your permit file.

Festival restrooms work best in two or more clusters spread across the grounds, not one long row in a corner. Put a cluster near food, one near the stage and one near the exit. Keep each cluster on firm ground within about 25 ft of a truck lane so service can happen during the event.

• Doors face the walkway, away from food tents.
• Leave a truck lane open to each cluster for service.
• Light the clusters if the event runs after dark.
• Post a sign at the gate showing where restrooms are.