Portable/temporary signs

The traffic manager and roving car park supervisor will be responsible for making sure that all entry and exit signs required are available and that when the event over, that signs are collected and returned to the event manager.

Car park marshals are sometimes required to stand for hours in a cold/wet, 01 hot/sunny field, pointing left or right to direct cars. Portable signs, similar to those carried by ‘lollipop ladies’ (school crossing patrols), are of use to them. The portable sign is cheap; a simple 2-metre pole with a white disk of hardboard nailed to the top. To the front of that is attached a direction arrow with a simple central bolt and wing nut through it. By loosening the nut and simply swivelling the arrow, the car park marshal has a sign that points left, right or straight on! (Painting ‘STOP’ on the back in red letters is useful too. Cars approaching from behind should stop, and by their sign to display ‘STOP’ to oncoming motorists marshalls can halt the flow of cars to resolve a problem.)

Traffic cones

When considering sign posting and traffic control, the effectiveness of the humble red and white traffic cone should not be ignored. Though a sign may request a driver to follow a specified path, a row of cones effectively forces them to take the required route. Cones are widely available and can easily be moved to different positions as requirements change. Funnels of traffic cones are particularly effective in guiding traffic to the correct parking locations when large open fields first come into use and will assist the marshals in that field.