Putting together festivals, concerts, craft shows and weddings is a fun application of generators. One thing that can quickly get stressful (and expensive) is not planning for power distribution ahead of time.
First, the Obligatory TLDR:
- You need a site map
- Keep your booths grouped together
- Beware of tripping hazards
- Generators are noisy
- keep things accessible
You need a site map
A map is crucial for communication. It gives a sense of scale and where things will sit relative to one another.
Use a drawing tool to make an event map. Even a simple one like the 3D paint tool that comes with windows will work.
It doesn’t have to be complex. Here everything is denoted clearly enough to explain to a power systems professional what you need from him or her.
The encircled G can be interpreted as a generator. The squares represent booths. The stars represent spider boxes which have outlets for the vendors to pick their lights and appliances into. The lines represent cables to the spider boxes.
You can draft a map before you know how much power you need. The generator pictured here could just as easily be 100kw powering giant toasters as it could be a 15kw powering string lights.
Keep your booths close together
Savvy professionals tend to keep booths close together. Every foot of cable costs about a dollar to run, and every outlet costs about ten. Therefore you want to keep the cable runs short and have vendors share spider boxes when possible.