Public health and food safety at events

If you're planning a public event in the Northern Territory, you must meet certain public health and food safety requirements.

This means making sure you have water, food and toilets available for attendees.

As an organiser, you must provide adequate facilities for the size and location of your event.

To help you plan, read the information below.

When to notify Environmental Health

You should notify Environmental Health of your public event if it:

• is likely to need more toilets, showers or other facilities at the site or
• will have temporary or mobile food vendors at your event.

Toilets

You must provide enough toilets for the number of expected attendees.

Consider the following:

• how long the event goes for
• types of crowds
• if the event is ticketed
• whether you will provide alcohol.

All toilets must come with toilet paper, bins, running water, soap, paper towels or a hand dryer.

Water

You must have an adequate supply of drinking water during the event.

Find out about water quality at public events.

Waste management

Make sure you have enough waste and recycling bins on site for waste disposal. Contracted staff need to check and empty waste bins throughout the event to prevent overflow.

Depending on the type of event, you might need to arrange for other kinds of waste and wastewater to be collected.

If your event location isn't connected to sewer mains, make sure the on-site wastewater system can cope.

You might need to contact a waste collection company to remove your waste, depending on how much you produce. For example, a market event might engage a company to provide pods or tanks for greywater, cooking oil or wastewater disposal and collection.

Cleaning

Make sure facilities are cleaned and maintained.

Toilets must be stocked with toilet paper, soap and paper towels for handwashing.

If toilets need regular pump-out, make sure they are monitored to avoid any overflows. Lack of cleaning or overflowing toilets can result in a public health nuisance occurring at the event.

Food vendors

Temporary and mobile food vendors that prepare and sell food must:

• be registered
• meet food standard requirements.

Food vehicles registered in another state or territory must provide a copy of their registration and discuss their activities with Environmental Health before operating at the event.

If a café or restaurant plans to operate a food stall at your event, they will need to register for an additional premises.

Environment Health officers will work with you to ensure all food operators meet their requirements.

You will need to work with the food vendors to ensure adequate facilities are available. This includes power, drinking water and waste management.

Find out more about food safety and regulations.

More information

For more information, get the crowded places checklist from the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience website.

Contact

Find your local Environmental Health office on the NT Health website.