Temporary Fencing Helps Support San Francisco Bay Area Economy

It’s not sexy and you won’t find it in the Victoria’s Secret catalog, but temporary fencing is being Googled. Okay, there weren’t 100K searches for temporary fencing this week, but it was mentioned on over a dozen blogs.

Temporary fencing isn’t at the forefront of most people’s minds unless they have a construction site that needs securing, a sporting event coming up, a parade, a traffic reroute or some other need. Last time I added it all up we had about 1.31 gillion miles of various temporary fencing panels to supply the greater San Francisco Bay Area with (just kidding). We have miles and miles of fencing, but not in the gillions.

The temporary site service business is one of the many “invisible small businesses” that go unnoticed. And yet, it is the small business network that employ more people and pump more money into the local economies than the big boys.

Searches on temporary fencing in Monterey, San Jose, Mountain View and Fremont won’t burn up the servers at Google, but like everything else - when people want something, the Internet is usually the first place they go to find it and we at Hanson & Fitch are here in cyberspace ready to respond to your temporary fencing needs.

With this weeks hot weather we are all moving a little slower around the office and at the yard.  We typically get to the yard before 7am and lately it feels like it is 80 degrees already.  You know when you feel hot and uncomfortable at the start of the day it is going to be a long one.  By Noon you are looking for a watering hole and begin thinking of what it was like when you were 10 years old running through the sprinklers trying to stay cool.  At 5pm the sun is just getting started and you looking for anything that resembles a tree or roof that can extend a moment of shade.  At 7pm you are listening to the news and are hoping for a down turn in the temperature gauge and you learn that it is going to get even hotter as the week rolls on.  Everyone seems to be complaining about the heat this week, but after it gets over 105 degree’s who’s counting?  Here’s to cooler days.

When people call for portable toilet or temporary restrooms, one of the first questions we get is - how many portable toilets for my event will I need? There are several factors that need to be considered:

• How many attendees do you expect?
• How long will the event last?
• Will alcohol be served?
• What is the weather likely to be?
• What level of physical activity is involved?

We are specialists in providing toilets for all types of events whether it involves a small group or a large crowd. We serve the entire San Francisco Bay Area including: Monterey, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Danville and all the surrounding communities.

Here is a chart to help you begin your planning.

I’ll bet most people don’t track news about portable toilets, but when you’re in the portable toilet and temporary restroom business, you need to stop every now and then to smell the roses! Providing temporary site services throughout the San Francisco Bay Area to communities like San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco can be challenging at times, but some of the stories in the news about portable toilets this week made me thankful for small blessings.

There were about 200 mentions of portable toilets this past week on blog postings. Isn’t that wild??!!! Most of them are posts about local events mentioning that portable toilets will be available at the event. From rock concerts and political rallies to boy scout jamborees - where you find people, you need to find toilets.

Here are a few of the portable toilet stories I came across:

• From South Africa - Portable Toilets being used to threaten the poor
• Up in Washington - Teens arrested for blowing up portable toilets
• In Brooklyn - Thieves beat up a guard and stuff him in a toilet
• In Rancho Cordova - Portable toilet fire destroys little league equipment

We are in the midst of our busiest summer. This year we added over 100 portable toilets to our inventory and we could probably use 100 more. Our temporary VIP restrooms are getting us a lot of positive feedback from clients.

We are working 7 days a week now to meet the demand. Customer service and satisfaction are always at the top of our list.

Infineon Raceway is exploding with race fans and soaring temperatures today.  There are literally thousands of people watching this weekends big NASCAR Race in Sonoma, CA.

If you ever get a chance to take a birds eye view from any of the vistas along the track, you will see bright colors of tents, trucks and of course colorful race cars going a few hundred miles an hour towards the finish line.  Friday drew more race fans than expected, which is always a sign of what’s to come.  The staff at Infineon moved quickly to install more crowd control fencing from Hanson & Fitch to make sure that the people stay safe and allow pedestrian traffic to move freely along the pathways.t.  The feedback from the spectators has been very positive and the perception is that the race is well organized.  One fan commented, “when you don’t think about crowds or being worried about seeing the cars go around track, you know there was a lot of preparation done to put on this race”. 

The summer of 2008 is turning into a summer of challenges in the temporary fencing & portable toilet business for us at Hanson & Fitch.

First the good news!

Business is booming. We are working 7 days a week to service demand from our clients. Some of our competitors have gone out of business or downscaled their business as a result of the ripple effect in the construction industry. This coupled with the success of our marketing efforts has helped our business to explode.

The bad news is, of course, GAS PRICES. Soaring fuel prices are hurting everyone and we are no exception. We are endeavoring to keep our prices stable. We are not planning on charging for checked baggage, but some adjustments may need to be made.

We remain committed to providing the best temporary site services at competitive and reasonable rates. Our clients are our business!

On the lighter side of the portable toilet business -

• Pa. Crews Rescue Nude Man Stuck In Portable Potty
• Man naps in portalet
• Fox’s Smith: People who get stuck in toilets are ‘a little crazy

Our phones are starting to ring with fervor for the up and coming Kenny Chesney concert in San Francisco at AT&T Park, June 8th.  There are going to be a number of events in and around the park for the spectators to see.  One of the those events will be sponsored by our local country radio station 95.7 The Wolf.  There is going to be a lighting rod of activity in anticipation of the Poets & Pirates Tour that will be starring Kenny Chesney. 

There is a large following of listeners of 95.7 and they call themselves the “Wolf Pack”.  When someone calls into the radio station they begin howling like a wolf on the radio! It is all in good fun and with Kenny earning the claim of entertainer of the year, I am sure he won’t disappoint the fans.  Hanson & Fitch will be providing a number of temporary site services, including portable restrooms, temporary fence, VIP restroom trailers and our crowd control barricade.  We look forward to being a part of this great event.

Last Saturday night was the 15th annual KFOG Kaboom pyrotechnics show on pier 30-32.  This year featured an outstanding fireworks display synchronized to a World Class Rock soundtrack, 3 Foghead favorite artists on the KFOG KaBoom stage, a Children’s Stage with continuous performances that made it a fun and exciting atmosphere.

Hanson & Fitch Temporary Site Services provided thousands of feet of temporary green barricade for the event and we received a number of emails and phone calls to say that it looked great.  Thousands of people came out to watch the fireworks show that was choreographed to music…it is an awesome show. This is one of the first years that there has been an admission charge, but participants agreed it was well worth it.    We look forward to next year and being a part of this event.

One of our very good customers is Booby O’Gorman who is the Operations Director for Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, CA. We spoke to Bobby this week in preparation for this years calendar.  Infineon Raceway has some very exciting races this year, the least of which is the very popular NASCAR race that brings thousands of people to the track.  The big race is just in time for summer break and is great for families with special packages for all that are interested.  The Toyota/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Spring Cup Series race is  June 20-22 and tickets are now available.

Our company installs miles of temporary fence and crowd control barricade for the race track and we always look forward to a new season.  This year we have been transporting materials to the track ahead of schedule with the anticipation of each race.  This helps us with having the right amount of fence on site before each race and allows us to respond quickly if there is a need for additional temporary fence that was not a part of the original plan.   We look forward to working with Bobby this year at Infineon Raceway, he is super customer!

Ora Thornton placed a call to us today and ordered for our portable restrooms and hand wash station for the exciting event that is coming up this weekend.  She explained that the Bayview Opera House will be celebrating phase one of the historic building renovation this Saturday from 1-4pm.  There will be performances by Dance Team and will be welcomed by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Supervisor Sophie Maxwell.  Ora is expecting a fairly large crowd and needed additional restrooms to accomodate all of the people that will be attneding the event.  The Bayview Opera House is located on 4705 Third Street in San Francisco.  We look forward to working with Ora and being a part of this historic event.