Site location

The location of your event site is very important. It must be near enough to allow you to make constant visits during planning and preparation and it must be near enough to a centre of population from which you can draw the public to attend your event.

The largest, most luxuriously accommodated site is useless if you and the public have to travel the length of the country to reach it and then trek across five miles of bog to get onto it. The public will go a long way for a good event, but there is a limit to the time and money they will invest in reaching a distant event, no matter how good it promises to be.

Remember that the further away the event site is, the greater the logistical problems become and the wider the area you will need to cover with your advertising.

Road, rail and bus access

The attractions, supplies, tents, equipment and the public all have to reach the site. More than that, the majority of them have to reach and then leave the site at nearly same time on the same day(s). That means that roads access and public transport serving your proposed site must be good.

Preferably the site will be served by inter-linking road, rail and bus services, so that no groups of the public are excluded from access. Such a site is rare, but you must try to get the best site you can. It may be worth including details of the easy and inexpensive access to your site in your advertising, or even paying a local coach company to run a park and ride service to the event, if that is viable or beneficial.

Depending on the location of your site and the audience you are expecting, it might be also be worthwhile to include simple outline maps on tickets and posters showing the best access routes!

Secure perimeter

Many sites will need a secure perimeter, as without one, members of the public will be able to gain access free of charge. By giving free access, but putting a small surcharge on all sales and activities on site you can overcome this problem, but there is no substitute for a stout fence or hedge and an entry fee.

When negotiating with the landowner for a site, pay attention to the boundaries. For example a farmer may offer one field to you, with good secure, dense hedges on three sides, but open to another field on the remaining side. During negotiations, point out the access problems you will have with the open side of the field. Don’t make problems for yourself, by planning to rent the field and then pay for the erection of a temporary fence. If the adjacent field has good solid fences and hedges, make use of it and simply negotiate to use both fields as the event site, taking advantage of the existing natural secure boundary hedges. This will leave you with a more than adequate area (if you did your sums right) with the benefit of an existing secure boundary. Though it may strictly speaking be larger than you originally required, the benefits outweigh the costs.

While checking the size and condition of the site and boundary, make sure that you also check for and consider access points. Having a strong, prickly hedge backed with chain link fence is wonderful, as long as there are sufficient gates at the right points to allow access by the public, exhibitors, deliveries and service trucks.