You don’t have to travel across the pond to enjoy a traditional Oktoberfest.
Every September, thousands of people don dirndls and lederhosen and bring the spirit of Bavaria to Southwestern Wisconsin. New Glarus Oktoberfest is a four-day festival filled with craft beer, live music and traditional Swiss and German food. Attendees also enjoy wagon rides, chainsaw carving and a host of local vendors.
The ruckus outdoor festival takes place in downtown New Glarus where the local chamber of commerce blocks off three blocks for the event. The population of New Glarus is normally 2,000 people. Oktoberfest brings in roughly 20,000 festivalgoers. Monson Septic Pumping & Portable Restrooms has been supplying portable restrooms and services for the event since 2019. The company sets up 30 portable restrooms, four hand-washing stations and one handicap-accessible unit.
Company History
Jeff and Laurie Monson opened Monson Septic Pumping & Portable Restrooms in 2006. The company is located in Wiota, Wisconsin, and serves a 60-mile radius. Jeff Monson started with 12 Satellite Global portable restroom units he hauled on a small trailer using a 1998 Chevrolet half-ton pickup truck. He also had a small homemade truck for doing septic work.
“It was a 150-gallon tank and it was run by a vacuum pump from a farmer’s milk house. He used it for running the pipeline into his barn,” Jeff says. “It was quite the homemade unit.”
The company’s first clients included golf courses and special events. After a few years, he added 35 more Satellite Global portable restroom units. Jeff Monson continued to work another full-time job for seven years before going into the portable restroom business full time.
Nearly 20 years later, the company has three full-time employees in addition to Jeff Monson’s son, Aaron Monson, who works as a certified operator and daughter, Marissa Monson, who works as technical support staff. The company now has 400 Satellite Global portable restroom units, four hand-washing stations and a handicap-accessible unit and they haul the units on an 18-place trailer.
Monson Septic Pumping & Portable Restrooms operates three service trucks, including a 2017 Ford F-550 with a PortaLogix 350-gallon freshwater/800-gallon wastewater aluminum tank; a 2022 Ram 5500 with an Imperial Industries Sidewinder 300-gallon freshwater/700-gallon wastewater aluminum tank; and a 2018 Ford F-550 with an Imperial Industries 300-gallon freshwater/800-gallon wastewater steel tank. The company also owns a 2010 Peterbilt with a 4,000-gallon tank for residential pumping. And finally, they have three Rich Specialty Trailers that are 22-feet in length with five stalls.
Setting Up
New Glarus Oktoberfest is a four-day event that kicks off Thursday evening. Monson Septic Pumping & Portable Restrooms starts putting things in place for the festival on Wednesday.
“We’re able to do the whole setup in one day,” Aaron says. “It usually takes three or four of us to set up.”
Getting all the restroom units where they need to be takes them about eight hours and at least two trips back and forth to the shop. The company hauls in 30 restrooms, four hand-washing stations and one handicap-accessible restroom.
“The biggest hurdle for us is that they have a three-block radius for the festival, so we’re pretty much capped out on space,” Aaron says.
Lessons Learned
Monson Septic Pumping & Portable Restrooms started providing portable restroom units for New Glarus Oktoberfest in 2019. In addition to that being their first year, there was also a new director at the chamber of commerce. The first year provided a steep learning curve for everyone.
“They had record crowds that they did not expect whatsoever. Maybe it was because of their advertising efforts, but whatever it may have been, we only had 20 restrooms that year,” Aaron said. “They literally almost overflowed. It was as bad of a catastrophe as you can get in this industry.”
The event was cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2021, Monson Septic Pumping & Portable Restrooms was better prepared for the crowds. They added an additional 10 portable restroom units and spread them out around the festival grounds to break up the crowds.
Main Event
While the festival takes place over four days, it’s only open during the evening hours on Thursday and Friday. Saturday and Sunday draw the big crowds, Saturday especially. The festival runs for over 12 hours on Saturday. Monson Septic Pumping & Portable Restrooms services the units Saturday and Sunday morning before the festival opens for the day.
“We usually try to arrive and start doing our work at 7 a.m. That gives us plenty of time to get wrapped up and clear before the foot traffic picks up for the morning,” Aaron says.
It takes three people and three service trucks about two hours to get all 30 units serviced. They remove the waste, pressure-wash them and restock chemicals and water in the units. They also restock toilet paper and hand sanitizer.
“We like to get back there late Saturday afternoon if we can just to kind of keep an eye on things,” Jeff says. “We try to keep a truck at the event in case things do go sideways, which can happen.”
However, if problems were to occur it wouldn’t be an easy fix. “It’s really difficult to get trucks into the crowds,” Jeff says.
Wisconsin is the beer and cheese capital of the world, and according to the Monsons, New Glarus is the epicenter. Oktoberfest celebrates these indulgences at the potential risk of the portable restrooms. However, despite the party atmosphere, the Monsons say the patrons keep the restrooms clean.
“I’ve always thought in comparison to other festivals, they actually are cleaner and more respected than most places,” Aaron says. “Even though they’re partying for 12 hours, they are pretty respectful.”
Wrapping It Up
Tear down takes place on the Monday following the festival. It requires four employees and can take up to eight hours to get the units pumped out, cleaned, power washed and transported back to the shop. The Monsons say they have a great relationship with festival organizers that contributes to the annual success.
If the festival continues to grow it may need to go through some growing pains. In order to add more units, there needs to be more space. That’s up to whether the city decides to expand the radius of the festival grounds. New Glarus Oktoberfest transforms the quiet community into a family-friendly festival that’s an important economic driver for the community. With the help of Monson Septic Pumping & Portable Restrooms festival goers will enjoy beer, bratwurst and clean portable restroom units for years to come.
» THE JOB: New Glarus Oktoberfest
» LOCATION: New Glarus, Wisconsin
» THE PRO: Monson Septic Pumping & Portable Restrooms, Wiota, Wisconsin
