Bayou Breakthrough

Louisiana’s Event Restroom stakes its claim to local film work and the biggest high-profile parties in Cajun Country, and asks for more!
Bayou  Breakthrough
Technician Somrok Chieen connects a hose to an Event Restroom truck built out by Best Enterprises during Jazz Fest in New Orleans. Much of the service work was done overnight after the crowds left.

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Still a young company, Event Restroom has built on its strengths in New Orleans and Lafayette, La., by recognizing and capitalizing on new opportunities that make the most of the company’s existing expertise.

The family company provides a broad range of portable sanitation services to clients ranging from wedding parties to sporting and special events, the construction market, military bases, film productions and disaster response teams.

“I grew up in the rental business,” says Event Restroom president Steve Young. “My dad ran a general equipment rental when I was in college and among the things he rented were tents and party supplies, a business he sold to my brother Richard in 2002.”

In 2005, Steve Young bought two Wells Cargo restroom trailers with the intent of providing luxury restroom service. Early on, he used the trailers to support the movie crews working on the Denzel Washington film Deja Vu, which was shooting in New Orleans.

 

HURRICANE KATRINA

Weeks later, Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.

“There’s no doubt that I was in the right place at the right time to help,” Young says. “The movie schedule was rolled back and I put the two trailers into service for disaster relief, bought three other Wells Cargo trailers and rented more from others.’’ Young slept in a parking garage in the weeks after Katrina and learned how to manage his fleet of equipment.

At that point, Young outsourced the servicing, but the following year, as New Orleans recovered, he invested in his first vacuum service truck, a 2003 Ford F-550 flatbed with a Best Enterprises 900-gallon waste/100-gallon freshwater tank.

“My wife (Robin) and mother (Diane Schaefer) would service the trailers and I would pump them out,” Young says. “We did all of the work ourselves until we started to hire employees in late 2006.”

A state tax credit system for motion picture production provided the business with a steady stream of trailer rental income.

“I met all of the different location managers and it became a big industry for me,” Young says. “There’s a lot of competition, but it all comes down to service. New companies usually try to chip away at the business by lowballing it, but our service always brings the client back to us.” Over the years, the company has provided service to productions including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Green Lantern, and G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

 

BURGEONING INVENTORY

As Young moved further into the film industry, he was asked to provide not only restroom trailers for the location department but restrooms for construction when crews built sets.

“At first I didn’t want to do (single restroom units), instead subbing all of the contracts to friends in the industry,” he says. “But that also made me dependent on others to bid on the large festival contracts. It was inevitable I had to get into portable toilets simply out of fear of losing any of the business that transpired from festival activity.”

The company currently sources restroom and shower trailers from a variety of manufacturers, including JAG Mobile Solutions, NuConcepts, Wells Cargo, Advanced Containment Systems Inc. (ACSI), Ameri-Can Engineering and Forest River. Its largest festival trailers are 53 feet long and serve up to 20 users at a time. A large stock of hand-wash stations and restrooms come from PolyPortables Inc. These include units with running water, ADA-compliant models and upscale Ambassador models.

Storage space isn’t a problem. The company’s five-acre yard in Gretna is minutes from downtown New Orleans. Another seven acres owned by Richard Young is available when needed.

 

EMERGING MARKETS

Natural disasters again sparked a call for Event Restroom services in 2008, with the arrival of hurricanes Gustav and Ike. The company was one of the primary suppliers of restroom and shower trailers, tents, generators, lighting, pump service and potable water to the National Guard, government agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and others.

The business expanded to Lafayette, about two hours to the west, in 2009. The Lafayette location provides service to a range of festivals and special events, including Festival Internationale, Downtown Alive, and the Louisiana Cattle Festival.

The company operates a third yard in Hattiesburg, Miss., a storage facility serving rapid emergency deployments in the area and providing a safe harbor to get equipment out of harm’s way during hurricanes.

Event Restroom again found itself assisting in disaster response in the spring of 2010 as BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill spread across the Gulf of Mexico to the Mississippi Delta.

 

FESTIVAL CRUNCH TIME

The company’s two busiest months are April and October. “That’s when we have the least amount of rain and the prettiest weather,” Young says. “That’s also peak season for us because of a combination of regular festivals and serving our traditional clients.”

Last October saw Event Restroom working at music events including Gretna Fest and Voodoo Music Experience. The spring season is busier still. In March and April, the company worked at Mardi Gras events, the PGA’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans golf tournament, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (Jazz Fest) and the Festival International de Louisiane in Lafayette – the latter three festivals overlapping.

“In April, we need to triple our staff size to about 60 people, just to handle all of the business,” Young says. “We recruit family members, friends and others to fill all of the positions we need to handle the peak season.”

Jazz Fest is the crux of April’s schedule. The event takes place over two extended weekends at the New Orleans Fair Grounds and entertains crowds of up to 200,000. Event Restroom has been working the festival for four years, but 2012 marked the first time the company took on the entire contract.

The company provided more than 500 restrooms, including 100 units for restaurants, food and arts and crafts vendors, as well as seven restroom trailers, two 53-foot restroom trailers, a VIP trailer and 100 to 150 holding tanks. Crews worked 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. servicing equipment around the outside of the venue at bus stations and other event-related areas.

 

SCREEN WASTE, THEN DUMP

“Servicing can be a real problem, because at these events there’s more trash in the toilets than in the trash cans,” Young says. “We have to pump out everything from beverage cups to T-shirts, which we pass through a screening system before taking everything to a specific location on site where we dump.

“We have an agreement with the city to dump all of the waste on site. We take three or four trucks and have them off-load at one time. The trucks fill up so fast, you really have to have your systems in place or it will drag out all night.”

The PGA event overlaps the first weekend of Jazz Fest, requiring 120 portable restrooms, 10 to 12 restroom trailers and 10 holding tanks.

All of Gretna’s 10 vacuum trucks are in service during the peak period. The trucks include International, Ford, Kenworth, Peterbilt, Isuzu and Chevrolet with steel and stainless steel tanks by Best Enterprises, Crescent Tank Mfg. and Keith Huber. A Ford F-250 and F-350 delivery truck are con-verted to vacuum service using Best Enterprises slide-in tanks. A Kenworth T-800 carries a 3,000-gallon potable water tank. Masport and Conde (Westmoor Ltd.) pumps provide vacuum for all Event Restroom trucks.

With additional trucks subbed from other contractors, Event Restroom devotes 12 rigs to Jazz Fest and the PGA event.

The Lafayette location operates a Chevy Silverado 2500 and Ford F-550 with Best Enterprises tanks and an FMI Truck Sales & Service vacuum trailer. Lafayette also supports the New Orleans office for the second week of Jazz Fest.

The company bids on contracts in neighboring states and farther afield. It has taken restroom trailer contracts at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, and in Tuscaloosa, Ala., in Sturgis, S.D., and even an Audi dealer meeting on Alcatraz Island off San Francisco. Young says bidding on long-distance contract requires effective partnering with other portable sanitation providers.

“This is random stuff and requires cooperation with other companies in the area who can service the trailers, just as we would for them,” Young says. “It’s all about everyone trying to make a little money, instead of being greedy.”

 

EXPANDING ORGANICALLY

Event Restroom continues to expand organically from areas where it’s well established. It now offers generators, for example, to service events where trailers are located away from traditional power sources.

“We’re also finding that clients in the festival, special events and construction fields use a lot of portable fencing, so we’re now providing that as part of the package,” Young says. “On construction contracts, we’re also often asked if we can supply roll-off containers and garbage trucks, and it also makes business sense for us to enter that market because the organization, delivery and paperwork are similar to what we already do.”

Event Restroom employs a sales staff of three. Dylan Langdon, vice president of sales, handles large-scale events and special projects. Jamie Verdin handles film and television sales and assists in office operations. Gene Duncan is devoted to expanding the company’s construction business.

The company also develops business through NOLA Marketplace, a New Orleans-area business directory.

“Although we know we get a large amount of business through the website, we haven’t yet analyzed exactly how many clicks turn into business for us,” Young says. “Even though we’re extremely busy, we still want to be able to differentiate between the work we get from the Internet and through word-of-mouth.”

 

BUILD THE BUSINESS

Young’s advice to smaller contractors who are looking to expand?

“A lot of operators are one step away from making it up to the next level, but they get scared and back off,” he says. “If you see a contract opportunity, really analyze that inventory and see where you fall short, sub-rent if you have to, and if you’re looking at a three-year event contract, buy that next truck or trailer.

“Do what it takes to get the business,’’ he offers. “You may not make money in the first year of the contract, but by year two it should turn profitable and give you the boost you need to grow your business.”



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