Space Planning for Festivals and Outdoor Events
Site, zones, routes, welfare and safety. Planning an outdoor event before the license application.
This guide shows how to plan an outdoor site before you apply for a license. It covers the ground survey, zones, routes, capacity, welfare and fire. You get a bad-hour test, a layer list for the site plan and an eight-step sequence from survey to submission.
A festival site plan is the backbone of the license application, the event management plan and the build schedule. An outdoor event has no walls to define it, so the organizer draws them. That means the boundary, the zones, the routes and every service a temporary town of thousands needs. Plan the ground, the routes and the welfare before the attractions.
A town for a weekend
A building gives an indoor event a boundary, power, water, toilets, lighting, shelter and known exits. An open site gives none of them.
That makes even a small festival a big job. A site for a few thousand people needs fences, power, water, toilets, lights and shelter, all brought in. Every one of those services has to be designed, hired, built and removed.
Survey the ground
Start with a base map. Where the budget allows, commission a measured survey of the land to the RICS guidance. If not, use aerial photos checked against measurements on site.
Record the levels and slopes, how firm the ground is and how it drains. Mark trees, overhead lines and buried services. Note every point where vehicles can get in, and the neighbors who will mind the noise.
Walk the site after heavy rain if you can. It shows drainage that a dry survey misses. Free GIS mapping software such as QGIS works, and so does CAD. The plan must be to scale and georeferenced, which means tied to real map coordinates.
Zones and the boundary
Zone the site by function. The usual zones are the arena, food and bars, welfare and medical, back of house and the production compound. Add the artist area, camping, and car and coach parks. Draw the fence line, the entry and exit gates, search areas and queue space outside the gates. Keep noisy zones away from neighbors and from quiet zones such as welfare and camping.
Put the production compound beside a vehicle gate, so build traffic never crosses the arena. Place medical and welfare where emergency vehicles can reach them and the crowd can find them.
Routes for people, vehicles and emergencies
Keep walking routes apart from build and service traffic. Keep one route just for emergency vehicles. It must reach every zone without crossing a crowd, and never share a gate with people on foot.
Plan routes from public transport and parking. Light them for leaving after dark, and size their width to the flow. The Green Guide rates of passage were written for permanent grounds. Apply them to grass and temporary gates with care.
The site is a building site before and after the show. So plan build and break traffic as carefully as the show days. Then run the bad-hour test.
- Rain: Routes that flood or turn to mud, where crowds shelter, and vehicle routes that must still carry weight
- Surge at the main stage: Where the pressure goes, and whether bars and attractions elsewhere draw density away
- Evacuation after dark: Lighting on every route, signs at every junction, and route widths that clear the site in the planned time
Capacity and the front of stage
Work out capacity from usable area. Leave out structures, steep slopes and back of house, then apply a standing density factor. Slopes cut usable area, because a standing crowd cannot safely use steep ground.
Check the result against gate and exit widths, and take the lower figure. Plan the front-of-stage barrier and pit to the HSE stage barrier guidance. Spread bars and attractions to draw density away from the main stage. Space planning for concerts and live shows covers the stage end.
Welfare, fire and temporary structures
Welfare covers toilets, water points, medical and welfare tents, and help for lost children and vulnerable people. It also covers accessible facilities, viewing platforms and the waste plan. Take toilet numbers from the welfare chapter of the Purple Guide in its current edition.
Waste is one of the details that most often ruin an event. Put bins along every route, plan when they are emptied, and give the trucks their own way in.
For fire in England, see Fire safety risk assessment: open air events and venues. It dates from 2007 and was updated in September 2023.
In the US, the Event Safety Alliance guide and ANSI E1.21 cover temporary structures that stand on the ground. Add a wind plan for stages and tents. Elsewhere, confirm the local rules first. Event safety rules by country is a starting point.
The festival site plan as a license document
The licensing authority reads the site plan first. Draw it as a set, with these parts and layers.
- A scale bar and north point.
- A legend.
- A revision table and date.
- Layers for the boundary, zones, routes, welfare, fire points, structures, power and water.
In the UK, a safety advisory group reviews the plan. Elsewhere, a permit review does the same job. Agree the plan before contracts are signed. Number every sheet, date every revision, and keep a list of who got which version.
Follow this sequence from survey to submission.
- Survey the ground.
- Draw the boundary and the zones.
- Separate routes for people, vehicles and emergencies.
- Work out capacity against gates and exits.
- Place welfare, fire points and structures.
- Run the bad-hour test.
- Send the layered plan to the safety advisory group or permit office.
- Revise it, date it and submit it with the license application.
Ground first
Plan the ground, the routes and the welfare before the attractions. Then the license application largely writes itself.
Frequently asked questions
What should a festival site plan include?
It needs a scale bar, north point, legend, revision table and date. Add layers for the boundary, zones, routes, welfare, fire points, structures, power and water. The licensing authority and the safety advisory group read it as the backbone of the event management plan, so date every issue.
How do you calculate festival capacity?
Measure the usable area, leaving out structures, steep slopes and back of house. Divide it by a standing density factor. Then check how many people the gates and exit routes can clear in the planned time. Use the lower of the two figures.
How many toilets does a festival need?
Take the figure from the welfare chapter of the Purple Guide in its current edition, or from the guidance your local authority applies. Plan accessible units at the same time. Also plan the service routes the emptying trucks need, alongside the toilet blocks themselves.
A good site plan is one to-scale drawing that every team works from. Monet brings that idea to indoor venues. It lays out an event to scale from a floor plan and a brief, and re-runs exit clearance and crowd-flow checks after every change.