Event Portable Restroom Calculator Factors

When planning an event that will require portable toilet rentals, it is extremely important to get the number of portable toilets needed right. Not having enough portable toilets can result in long lines and unsanitary conditions which negatively impacts your event in several ways. Some of the key elements in determine how many porta potties to rent for an event are:

  • Number of event attendees
  • Number of event staff, volunteers, etc that will be on site
  • Hours of the event
  • Will there be crew on site on the days before and after your event?
  • Number of days the event will last?
  • Will you want your portable toilets cleaned during the event?
  • How much space is available for your portable toilet rentals?
  • Do you need to provide ADA compliant restrooms for guests?
  • You will likely want to provide hand washing stations, especially if food is being served at your event. Do these hand washing stations need to have hot water per local codes?

WHAT’S THE RULE OF THUMB FOR THE NUMBER OF PORTA POTTIES AT A WEDDING?

When we took a look at those top Google results, we saw a lot of people recommending at least 1 porta potty per 50 people. However said there was a time limit of 4 hours on that number, too. If your guests are staying longer than 4 hours, you will need another available porta potty so that you don’t wind up with people waiting in lines. No one likes lines. provided an entire table for the number of porta potties you would need depending on the size of your guest count and how many hours your event would last, but they recommended 1 portable toilet for every 50 people instead of 100. But they also agree with the above article, increasing the number of porta potties to person ratio after a 4 hour time period.

And there is also a common consideration among the results for the percentage of women you have at the event and if you’ll be serving alcohol. Did you know that for every gram of alcohol consumed, people will pee 10mL more? So according to that data, if you’ll be throwing a wedding for 198 people, 105 of them are women, and you know they will be eating dinner and drinking Mai Tais at the reception, you’ll need more porta potties than you would if you were throwing a kid’s birthday party with no alcohol, and less food and drink because people will be having to go more often.

A good basic rule of thumb is going to be a lot more helpful when trying to decide how many porta potties you need so that you don’t have to constantly look up the math or guess and possibly be wrong. In our experiences at AYS, we recommend that you get 2 for your wedding if you have up to 100 people, one for men and one for women. Add a women’s unit first for larger crowds, and once you hit the 200 attendees mark, add another men’s unit. And for those looking to upgrade the porta potty experience, we really recommend our Portable ViP Trailer!