About the Project

As part of their 360 degrees world tour in 2010, U2 played two concerts at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland on the 25th and 26th November. The concerts had an estimated audience of 50, 000 per night from all over NZ, as well as a large events staff and crew.

Port-A-Loo was contracted to supply the specialist portable toilet and bathroom facilities for the event - making sure the facilities were clean and hygienic at all times and optimising the number of toilets and facilities in order to have minimal waiting time is vital.

Port-A-Loo supplied 340 portable toilets, men’s urinals, special needs toilets, portable showers and executive portable bathroom blocks for the event.

In addition to supplying Port-A-Loo to the public via the event, Gold Series luxury trailers, Silver series trailers and 4 bay showers were all supplied to cater for the crew and band members. All of these facilities were installed with pumps, tanks and water as well as being cleaned and serviced twice a day.


The Challenge
With the Christchurch earthquake happening 3 months prior to the U2 concert, most of the Auckland portable toilets and facilities had been transported down to the South Island to assist the Christchurch City Council. This proved to a great logistical challenge for the Port-A-Loo team as enough facilities needed to be found and transported back up to Mt Smart Stadium.

In addition to this all of the portable toilets and portable bathrooms facilities needed to be serviced in-between concerts. A big ask for the volume of toilets required at the event.

The Solution

With Hirepool Port-A-Loo purchasing Mc Entee Hire’s sanitation assets (previously The Dunny Company assets) in Hamilton three days before the show (Phew!) the call was made to get all the portable toilets and facilities out of Hamilton and up to Mt Smart Stadium. With a very tight deadline of two days the team managed to transport all the facilities up to Auckland, get the paper and sanitiser dispensers all changed, and place the toilets in their rightful location at the event.

On the day of the first concert staff where allocated to different areas to look after the toilets and make sure everything ran smoothly. In order to optimise the use of toilets and reduce waiting times a couple of portable were moved from areas not being heavily used to a more heavily used area in order to keep the crowd happy.

After the concert finished on the Thursday night, the toilets and facilities needed to be serviced and replenished before the concert the next day. Staff began this process immediately after the concert working through the night, finally finishing at 6am the next morning !

“Servicing 300 odd toilets and facilities is a large job to get done! The team were committed and worked through the night to get them serviced and cleaned for the concert the next day – finally heading home for some sleep at 6am” said Peter Elliot Hirepool Port-A-Loo’s National Product Manager.

On the second day of the concert the Port-A-Loo team were back to the venue to make sure everything was in place and the crowd were catered for through the concert.

After the final show the toilets and facilities were removed from the venue and thoroughly cleaned ready for transporting to the next big event “Gisborne”