How Shipping Containers Add to the Festival Experience

Written by Susan Nalevac | January 30, 2023

Shipping containers are becoming more common sights—from container homes to offices and pop-up restaurants. Containers are also useful for temporary outdoor events like festivals. Below, we’ll explain the many benefits of shipping containers and how they can add to the festival experience.

Benefits of Using Shipping Containers for Festivals

Before we get into all the ways festivals can put converted shipping containers to use, we’ll discuss the many advantages that a converted container offers festivals, from transportation convenience to durability.

• Transportation Convenience
• Storage Utility
• Infrastructure Versatility
• Durability

Transportation Convenience

We can’t forget that shipping containers are originally engineered for transporting and storing goods across vast distances. Naturally, these shipping containers are easy to move, making them ideal as portable storage containers.

At a festival, everything is temporary, and everything—from the concessions to the stages and bathrooms—must be hauled in and shipped out in only a matter of hours. In this environment, shipping containers thrive, as setup and packing up is much simpler than having to set up intricate tents and booths. Also, moving the containers is as easy as putting them on a truck and moving out.

Storage Utility

Also, let’s not forget about the storage utility of these shipping containers. Next to shipping goods, these containers are most often used as storage structures thanks to their security, durability, and portability.

Every shipping container is made with durable steel that can stand up to the elements better than any other makeshift structure or tent. With steel walls and heavy-duty locking doors, containers make for secure and simple storage locations for festivals to put supplies and expensive equipment they need to keep onsite.

Infrastructure Versatility

Later, we’ll discuss all the different uses for converted shipping containers at festivals, but there are many ways in which regular containers can be used for the festival’s infrastructure. Many festivals use containers for all temporary things, like foundations for stages, barriers, enclosures, or even shelters for crowds.

For festivals that see thousands of patrons flow through their grounds for days, it’s helpful and safe to have solid structures acting as barriers for crowd control instead of small railings and tents. The container’s size makes it easy to spot festival landmarks like stages, entrances, and exits.

Durability

Festivals take place outdoors, which adds a level of fun for patrons and unpredictability with the weather. Many of us have been to outdoor festivals where the weather was more of a challenge than a joy—whether it’s blustery winds, scorching heat, or soaking rain and mud.

Since festivals are temporary, the infrastructure is typically flimsy and not built to withstand harsh weather elements, which can turn a fun festival into a nightmare of wind-blown tents and railings. But a steel shipping container can stand up to practically any weather as it’s built to protect cargo on thousand-mile journeys worldwide.

Uses for Converted Shipping Containers at Festivals

Below, you'll find some of the many ways in which converted shipping containers can add to a festival’s entertainment and convenience.

• Concession Stands
• Shopping Stalls
• Bathrooms
• Performance Stages
• Shelter and Care Stations
• Management Offices

Concession Stands

Perhaps the most common use for converted shipping containers at festivals is as concession stands for food and drink. Instead of cooking food under a flimsy tent or in a cramped food truck, a converted container gives concession workers and cooks much more space to work with and opens up a world of design opportunities.

People have converted containers into food and drink stalls, more like pop-up restaurants than simple concession stands. Converted concession containers can include bars, lights, and even rooftop seating! Converting a container into a concession stand is relatively simple and always draws a crowd at festivals.

Shopping Stalls

Another convenient use for containers at outdoor festivals is shopping and merchandise stalls. Whether it’s an ethnic festival full of local artisans selling trinkets and souvenirs or bands selling T-shirts, there’s almost always a row of vendors looking to sell things at festivals.

Typically, these rows of merchants are just in simple tents, but increasingly more festivals and vendors utilize open containers as stalls to sell merchandise. A container shopping stall is more durable against the weather, gives the merchant more space and opportunity to make their shop stand out, and is a more comfortable shopping environment for patrons—everybody wins!

Bathrooms

Perhaps the most dreaded part of going to a large outdoor festival with a huge crowd is using the bathroom. Often, there are not enough bathrooms for everyone—meaning long lines and generally filthy washrooms.



But the container bathroom is becoming a more frequent sight at festivals to supplement permanent bathroom locations as a much more comfortable alternative to portable toilets. These small container bathrooms are much closer to a real bathroom and can even be outfitted with air conditioning. Some festivals have even installed showers for patrons to enjoy!

Performance Stages

Stage setup and management are the festivals’ toughest but most crucial aspects. Setting up a stage is a massive undertaking, from the lighting and sound equipment to the stage itself—and it often has to be done several times.



But containers can easily be transformed into mobile stages that are easy to set up and move when not in use. Many container stages can even work while still attached to a truck—so setup is as simple as rolling it to its location and opening the doors!

Shelter & Care Stations

Outdoor festivals can be incredibly fun experiences. But with thousands of people all congregating in one location outdoors, it can also bring many weather and health-related challenges. Hosting a festival with thousands of people is also a safety responsibility, which is why festivals have first aid and shelter stations for people who are injured, experiencing illness, or need to get away from the crowd and weather for a moment.

Unfortunately, these shelters and stations are often just small tents, but container stations are becoming much more common at festivals. A container structure offers a much more durable and practical shelter location for people to escape the weather and gives emergency workers greater capability for storing equipment. Even something as simple as a large, empty container can provide much-needed shelter to attendants during adverse weather days.

Management Offices

Every festival also needs a home base from which management can coordinate and run operations for the festival. Often, these temporary headquarters are just tents or dingy and stuffy trailers that leave people cramped and disorganized.

But one of the most common container conversions is temporary offices, which are incredibly useful for companies and industries like construction that need mobile offices. Container offices can house everything an everyday office needs, from air conditioning and cubicles to plumbing.

Are you interested in adding shipping containers to your festival? At Container Management, Inc. we have many storage containers for sale in Indianapolis and many other locations across the country. Contact our helpful staff to add shipping containers to your festival experience today!