Celebrate Brooklyn: Too Many People, Too Little Bathrooms

Tuesday's opening night for this season’s Celebrate Brooklyn was a mix of good and bad.  On the good side, Jimmy Cliff and a rocking band played for a solid 2 hours.

However, it seemed to this attendee that they admitted too many people.   We arrived early and secured seats but as soon as the music started, the aisles – meant for walking – immediately filled with people.  The main path separating the seating areas and the grass areas was solid with bodies and became barely navigable.  And the grassy areas were pretty much standing room only.   

I like a good party, but getting around was like swimming up the Copper River.  Thankfully, most of the crowd were self-medicating for glaucoma, so there didn’t seem to be any fights or other disturbances.  Had it been a Bieber show, thousands of screaming girls might have been trampled.

Where organizers really dropped the ball were in the bathroom facilities.  Usually one can use the permanent bathroom facilities built into the band shell building.  However, for the most of the show, they weren’t letting people use these.  As such, the crowd of nearly 8,000 (I’m guessing here) had to share 12 portable toilets.

That’s right – twelve.  In other words, one per 666 people.

According to Mesa Waste Services, a toilet rental service, it is recommended that for a four-hour event of 8,000 people, there should be 66 portable restrooms available, not 12. The Race Director of the Boston Marathon recommends one porta potty per 50 runners, to really keep lines at a minimum.

Given the mighty bathroom lines, people in my group held off eating or buying booze for fear of it triggering their internal plumbing.   Hopefully organizers can solve the toilet issue so that half the experience isn’t spent in line.  Otherwise people might want to bring bed pans or wear Depends or a Stadium Pal. 

Anyone else run into the same issue? Did you go, and then have to "go," but found there was nowhere to go?