Vehicle staging is one of the most important aspects to consider when designing flawless event transportation. Having improper vehicle staging could create a domino effect that may affect the flow of vehicles, wait time for attendees, and aesthetic of the event. Let’s look into some real life examples of how proper vehicle staging aided in a successful ground transportation program.

 Practical Event Transportation Staging Tips and Why it's Important

Staging Event Transportation in a Crowded City

In February I went on-site to be a transportation coordinator for an event we were doing at Fashion Week in New York City. Without a doubt the vehicle staging beforehand was key to making sure the pickup of VIP clients went smoothly.

A little background:

• The event was a fashion show for a world-class brand.

• They needed transportation for VIP clients from the 1st show to the 2nd show uptown, and finally a drop-off at their flagship store on 5th Ave.

• We hired 3 different transportation vendors all of which we made contact with en route and gave the staging directions

• The pickup street had hundreds of celebrities, photographers, security guards, and spectators.

Now if you take a look at this diagram:

You’ll notice the red line in the diagram above which was the initial staging area for the fleet of vehicles. Now if you look at the Google Maps screenshot below of the initial staging area (red line in above diagram) you'll notice a few commercial garages.

Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. We only had to remain staged for 20 mins until I got the signal from our 2nd on-site coordinator to release the vehicles.

With 10 minutes until go time, two large trucks came down Washington Street and needed to get into these garages…

We had to scramble our vehicles and go to a secondary staging location (purple line in diagram above) that we planned in case of an emergency. Once there, I had to line up the vehicles in the order I thought would provide the optimal outcome.

Due to the crowded street where the pickup was located (green line in diagram above), we knew all six vehicles couldn't be sent at the same time. The plan was to send two vehicles each time the other on-site coordinator (located at the pickup location) texted me. I had worked with 3 of the drivers multiple times and knew they were top notch. Since I knew the vehicles would be leaving in pairs I made sure those 3 drivers were the leaders of each group departing. That way the new chauffeurs could follow the leader, so to speak.

This wouldn’t be possible if all the vehicles/chauffeurs weren’t staged together within 1-2 minutes of the pickup location. Although there was a minor hiccup with the initial staging area (red line in diagram above) we quickly implemented Plan B and made it happen.

The 2nd on-site coordinator mentioned above also wrote a blog on his experience that day, detailing the importance of on-site coordinators you can check it out by clicking here.

Staging Wedding Transportation at a Private Estate

Another vehicle staging challenge arises when you have a large event or wedding at a private estate. The estate can certainly hold hundreds of people, but not dozens of vehicles. On top of that, guests don’t always want to see a fleet of vehicles while they’re enjoying the ceremony or listing to music. This was a challenge we faced when designing wedding transportation a few years ago.

At this particular estate there wasn’t a close enough parking lot or area that we felt comfortable staging the vehicles. We’ve had too many cases where a vehicle was needed ASAP in the middle of a wedding.

So we did the next best thing - created our own staging area. We ended up working with the estate engineers and landscaping team to tear down trees, create roads, and flatten a staging area close to the estate, but out of the view of attendees.

There were plenty of other challenges with planning and executing the transportation for this particular event. 

The underlying theme with these examples is to find a way to make the staging area as close as possible to the event. It might be easier to stage the vehicles 20 minutes away in a parking lot, but it could be a major nightmare on your event day. To learn more about other event transportation nightmares download our free eBook “9 Reasons Event Transportation Can Be a Nightmare (and how to fix it)."