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We are exploring playing three basketball games a night in a startup league and expect to average around 2,000 in attendance. We would like the first one to start at 4 p.m., if possible. We do not want the last game to start too late, but I would like to know what should be considered a reasonable amount of time for janitorial and maintenance between the games, since tickets will be sold as both individual game tickets as well as season tickets.
We do double-header hockey games several times per year and a few times do basketball and hockey events on the same day. The situation you describe would be much easier since there is no change in the set-up and the crowd size is so small. The answer is economic rather than logistical. With a large enough labor force, you could clear the building, clean and re-open 30 minutes after the end of a game, so game 2 could be at 6:45. Really, since the building does not have to be cleared between games, the solution is a somewhat larger clean-up crew during the game that works really hard for 15 minutes between games. In that case game 2 could start at 6:30. The building clean-up is ongoing throughout the night and with a crowd of around 1,500 to 2,000, cleanliness would never become a problem.
If we had a game with about 1,500 people in our building that seats 5,400 for a game, we could get it cleaned up and ready to open for the next game in about 30 minutes. We commonly do this when we have high school hockey games on a Saturday afternoon and then a college game at night. We also do it between performances of the circus. When we do quick turns like this I usually have 2-3 building staff to do the concourses, lobbies and restrooms. We also get a crew of 9-12 young ladies from a local school to come in as a work project at a minimal cost to us.
That is a very good question and I assume pertains to cleaning the spectator seating areas, restrooms, concourse, concession areas, etc. In my experience with NCAA tournament games (two per session, two sessions per day), Disney on Ice (three shows per day) and circus (three shows per day), it really depends on the type of show, what concessions is serving and what the spectators’ expectations are coming into the event. A general admission ticket that allows the spectator to see all three games—spectators coming to the second and third game will expect people to already be at the event, they will come early enough that they will sit in empty seats that are clean. I am sure they will try to relocate when people leave, so the turnaround is continuous. Clean-up crews must constantly look to clean up throughout all three games. The key for this type of turnaround is to have adequate staff and plenty of trash cans available for the spectators. So, if the arena does not close between games the starting time for the next game should be 15 to 20 minutes. Some leagues have requirements for warm-up time. I suggest checking for any such requirements. A reserved ticket will require a building to kick everyone out after each game. The spectators waiting for the next game will expect a clean seating area, restrooms and concessions. This type of event will require a larger concentrated effort by your clean teams simply because the expectations of the guests are higher. This will increase the time it takes between games for clean-up to about 30 minutes. A good detailed clean-up plan will help cut the time it takes to make the arena look presentable for the next set of fans. This example is also affected by the number of clean-up staff. You know your arena and your spectators and you know your staff. During Disney shows we ask everyone to help clean up between shows: ticket office, ushers, security, concession workers, stagehands, etc. We also reward them for their effort (usually food, ice cream, slice of pizza, etc). The rest of our employees wear uniformed golf shirts and slacks, color-coded by departments. This serves both security and customer service issues. If you don’t kick people out and reserved seats are sold then you are back to a constant clean-up effort because everyone will be sitting in a fresh seat (in a perfect world). Other suggestions to help cut down the clean-up time: limit the food items to those that can be cleaned up easily (popcorn, peanuts, sunflower seeds are always more time consuming to clean up); have a designated eating area, which will have some effect on your concession revenues.
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