It’s that time of year again when playoff games and music festivals are bountiful. Crowds flock by the thousands for great entertainment and lasting memories. However, once the talent retires and the concert goers retreat, only one thing seems to remain on the venue grounds: a massive mess. That’s the cue for the cleanup crew to enter and manage the leftover waste efficiently and effectively. An inability to return a venue to its pre-event state can cause many problems. It can affect future business, compromise sanitation, and potentially harm the surrounding environment.
Cleaning may sound like a simple task, but maintaining a high standard of cleanliness for an entertainment facility is no small feat. An average arena in the United States can hold about 19,000 people. A mid-sized stadium can seat up to 73,000 fans. You not only have to consider the size of the venue, but also the sheer volume of dirt and litter caused by each and every individual in attendance. It takes a well-trained, professional team to make sure that the seats, aisles, restrooms, floors, and locker rooms are spotless and up to code.
Reliability in a cleanup crew is essential. Many of these janitorial teams work under time constraints to turn an entire area around in just a few hours, for an event the very next day. Close attention to detail and quality is also crucial to the success of a showground. Fans take pride in cheering for their teams and attending the shows of their favorite performers. Why would they want their experience muddled by dirty seats, sticky floors, and pungent odors? A clean facility books talent sells tickets and keeps fans coming back time and time again.
Music festivals are on a completely different level when it comes to scalable cleaning solutions. Coachella Music Festival produces 428 tons of waste each year. Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival produces 679 tons of waste. Glastonbury Festival produces about 1,800 tons of waste. Festival coordinators most commonly rely on manual labor (typically one worker per 2 acres) to maintain the site. This involves picking up trash, both during and after the event.
Without adequate organization, a festival’s garbage condition can turn from controllable to manic in just a matter of minutes. As one concert cleaner described it, “People who think this is easy have never tried it. You start off fine, but you then call about one [trash] can be filled up, only to get a call about one in your area. And it goes on and on like that all day. Without us, with so much coming in and nothing coming out, it would easily turn into a landfill.”
Precision is another quality most needed for a festival’s post-cleanup crew. Alongside aesthetic damage, residual litter can affect the surrounding environment. It can increase carbon footprints and harming the life around it. For example, remaining tent spikes from the Glastonbury Festival were ingested by grazing cows. This lead to deaths at Worthy Farms. Returning the grounds to its original state is crucial for the vitality of the land.
Anago offers professional, scalable, and reliable janitorial services for large venues. This includes stadiums, arenas, event halls, boutique spaces, banquet facilities, and more. Anago can provide complete cleaning solutions or simply augment your current cleaning staff. Call us if you have any questions regarding Anago’s Event Cleanup Services. Have a question regarding Anago’s superior franchising opportunities? Please contact Judy Walker (judy@anagocleaning.com)