Walk Your Event Before Your Visitors Do: The Complete Event Marshal Checklist

A working checklist for organisers who want a safe, smooth event, not just a list of what marshals do

Most advice on event marshals tells you what marshals are for. It rarely tells you how to plan for them properly, brief them well, or work out how many you actually need.

This is the version we wish every organiser had before their first event: a checklist built from years of walking sites before the gates open, standing in car parks in the rain, and briefing teams on the things that go wrong when nobody’s thought about them in advance.

Print it. Work through it site by site. Then hand the relevant sections to your marshal provider so everyone is planning from the same page.

Why the Visitor’s Journey Comes First

Every part of your event plan should be built around one question: what does a first-time visitor actually experience, in order?

Not the running order. Not the production schedule. The literal sequence of things a stranger encounters from the moment they leave their house to the moment they get back in their car.

That sequence- approach, parking, entrance, site, exit is also the exact sequence your marshalling plan should follow. Below is a checklist for each stage, followed by guidance on numbers, briefing, and the contingency planning that separates events that recover from problems and events that don’t.

1. Approach Roads & Traffic Management

Before anyone parks, they have to find you. This is where poor planning shows up first, and it’s rarely fixed on the day.

• Confirm what satellite navigation actually shows for your postcode it’s often wrong for large sites or fields with no formal address
• Place directional signage at every decision point on approach roads, not just at the entrance
• Identify where traffic will queue if it arrives faster than it can be processed, and agree this with local authorities/landowners in advance
• Brief marshals on a hold-and-release system for queuing traffic, rather than leaving vehicles to stack on public roads
• Position a marshal (not a sign) at the final turn into the site signs get ignored under pressure, people don’t
• Agree an escalation contact if traffic backs up onto a road you don’t control

Why it matters: traffic problems half a mile from your gate become your problem, your reputation, and sometimes your license to run the event again next year.

2. Parking & Vehicle Flow

Visitors rarely praise good parking. They always remember bad parking.

• Mark out capacity per parking area before the day, not by eye once cars start arriving
• Agree a clear trigger point for opening overflow parking and who has the authority to make that call
• Provide a dedicated, clearly signed accessible parking area close to the main entrance
• Plan a separate route or holding area for coaches, HGVs, and exhibitor vehicles
• Brief marshals on directing traffic into rows methodically, not just waving cars forward
• Position marshals at exit routes too end-of-day congestion causes more complaints than arrival ever does

Why it matters: a calm arrival lowers a visitor’s stress before they’ve even reached your gate. That mood carries through the rest of their visit.

3. Entrances, Signage & On-Site Pinch Points

Once visitors are on foot, your site should answer their questions before they have to ask.

• Walk the site without your own map and check whether the next destination is obvious at every turn
• Identify pinch points in advance, narrow gateways, single-file bridges, ticket scanning points and plan marshal coverage there specifically
• Place signage for toilets, first aid, information points and catering at natural decision points, not just at the entrance
• Check sightlines: can a marshal at a pinch point actually see a developing queue before it becomes a problem?
• Confirm accessible routes are marshalled, not just signed, kerbs, gates and gravel paths often need a person, not a symbol
• Test your plan at expected peak arrival time, not off-peak

Why it matters: flow problems compound. A five-minute bottleneck at 11am becomes a twenty-minute one by midday if nobody is actively managing it.

4. Briefing Your Marshals Properly

A marshal who doesn’t know where the first aid point is becomes part of the problem, not the solution.

• Give every marshal a simple, printed site map with key locations marked
• Brief them on the top ten questions visitors are likely to ask, and the answer to each
• Make clear that “I don’t know, let me find out” beats a guess or a shrug every time#
• Agree a common radio/communication protocol so information travels between marshals, not just up to control
• Rotate marshals through high-pressure positions (entrances, pinch points) so fatigue doesn’t set in
• Run a face-to-face briefing on the day, even if the same team worked your last event , sites and plans change

Why it matters: a confident thirty-second answer changes a visitor’s whole impression of your event. Being passed between three people who don’t know does the opposite, even if everything else runs perfectly.

5. Contingency & Weather Planning

No event runs exactly to plan. The organisers who cope well aren’t the ones with the biggest budget they’re the ones who planned for change.

• Agree in advance who has the authority to make live changes (opening overflow parking, closing an area, calling in extra marshals)
• Build a simple weather-trigger plan: at what point does rain, wind or heat change your marshalling positions?
• Identify your two or three most likely failure points (a late coach, a blocked road, an overrunning act) and agree the marshal response to each before the day
• Make sure marshals know they’re the eyes and ears of the event, brief them to report developing issues early, not just react to finished ones
• Keep a named point of contact reachable at all times for on-site decisions

Why it matters: small problems caught early stay small. The same problem spotted twenty minutes late usually needs three times the resource to fix.

6. How Many Marshals Do You Need?

There’s no single formula, but these are sensible starting ratios to work from before adjusting for your specific site:

Community/local event, low vehicle volume 1 marshal per 200–300 visitors
Ticketed event with vehicle access 1 marshal per 100–150 visitors, plus dedicated traffic/parking marshals
Large-scale or multi-entrance event Position-based planning — every pinch point, entrance and car park zone staffed individually, then scaled up

Treat these as a starting point, not a rule. The right number depends on site layout, vehicle access, weather exposure, and how many pinch points your walk-through actually reveals — which is exactly why the walk comes before the numbers, not after.

7. After the Event: The Walk You Shouldn’t Skip

The checklist doesn’t end when the gates close.

• Debrief marshals while the day is still fresh.  They saw things the control room never did
• Note every pinch point, delay or complaint against the specific location it happened, not just “parking was busy”
• Update your site map and marshal plan immediately, while the detail is still accurate
• Feed changes into next year’s brief rather than relying on memory

Why it matters: the event you’re planning next year starts with the notes you take this year.

What next?

Anyone can list what a marshal does. Fewer organisers actually walk the visitor’s route, stage by stage, and plan marshal positions against real pinch points, real questions, and real contingencies.

That’s the difference between staffing an event and managing one.

Work through this checklist site by site, before you book a single marshal and you’ll already be ahead of most events run this year.