How to Choose Matting for Outdoor Events

Setting up a large-scale stadium event, festival, concert, or other outdoor event requires a lot of planning and resources. It’s essential to choose quality outdoor mats that accommodate the type of event, terrain, and climate to provide the best safety and durability that can withstand rain, wind, prolonged sun exposure, and unexpected changes in weather or temperature. 

Many types of outdoor matting options are made from various materials and installed to create safe concert flooring, commencement flooring, beach access matting, walkways, roadways, and stadium flooring.

Stadium and Concert Matting

A large outdoor concert venue or stadium requires heavy-duty, low-maintenance ground protection mats that can accommodate a significant area while supporting a substantial amount of weight and traction needed for high-impact use. Choosing a cost-effective, easy-to-clean, durable matting option to cover the high square footage is essential. 

Ground protection mats are portable and lightweight, offering durable surfaces that remain stable for pedestrians and vehicles, provide synthetic and natural turf protection, and enable crane platforms for stage construction, storage, staging yards, and sound and lighting support.

Festival Matting

Festival grounds require stable, safe flooring that doesn’t shift or warp while providing a dry, secure, and durable option for event vendors, performers, and guests. Since these temporary mats must accommodate high traffic from pedestrians, composite ground protection mats can provide safe and easy access to staging spaces, platforms, parking, restrooms, concession stands, and other critical areas at the event. 

Your festival ground protection solution should support high foot traffic, vehicles, heavy equipment, and items needed for the set-up and take-down of performances, vendor demonstrations, and portable equipment. Festival mats must protect the area’s natural grass and sensitive surfaces while sustaining the weight and wear of attendees. You can learn more about this with our how to plan a successful outdoor music festival article.

Beach Access Matting

Beach events are popular during the summer, and it’s essential to find the proper matting that supports all participants and guests, including safe, reliable access for pedestrians, wheelchairs, mobility devices, and vehicles with heavy weight loads.

In addition, when planning a beach festival or party, it’s essential to consider various types of matting for the event, such as a large, heavy-duty mat for a stage, smaller walkway mats for guests, food concession stands, and seating.

Commencement Flooring Matting

Ground protection mats offer excellent protection in stadiums to host commencement ceremonies while providing low-maintenance care and protection for natural and synthetic surfaces. These durable mats offer extensive coverage for large venues to increase the potential for more guests to local graduation ceremonies and related celebrations.

Additional Factors to Consider for Outdoor Event Flooring

Outdoor ground protection options have come a long way due to innovative techniques and materials that prevent deterioration and improve functionality while remaining versatile, functional, and aesthetic for various events. It’s essential to consider the following factors when choosing the right solution for ground protection for your upcoming event.

Natural Floor Covering Options

If you prefer natural flooring, it’s essential to consider how well the temporary flooring will react to the environment and climate. In some cases, raw materials, such as wood mats, can warp or break over time. We recommend composite mats for their versatility and durability as a better ground protection option.

Soil and Land Conditions

When you shop for the right portable outdoor flooring for your outdoor event, it’s crucial to assess the soil and land conditions on which you plan to set up displays, stages, dance floors, seating areas, and other stations for your special event. If a surface isn’t flat enough, this can create an unsafe environment for attendees and vendors. 

For this reason, a thorough inspection of the land is vital to determine the best location for flooring placement to avoid potential safety issues while saving on unnecessary costs. Finding land that supports ground protection mats for your outdoor event is best.

Climate and Environment

Are you setting up an outdoor event on a hot summer day or anticipate the possibility of rain? Your ground protection mat choice should accommodate sun exposure, rain, and other changes to the local weather throughout your event, especially if you’re setting up for a wedding, party, or festival that will last all or most of the day. 

If your outdoor event or festival event includes a large canopy or tent coverings, this can shield the effects of wind and rain. However, the ground below the tent flooring should be durable enough to remain stable and waterproof so that the matting doesn’t absorb water or moisture. Composite mats are ideal for this type of application.

Installation of Ground Protection Mats

Sunbelt Rentals offers installation services so that your ground protection mats are placed to accommodate aesthetics, maintenance, and useability. There are various sizes to choose from to fit your outdoor event needs.

Our Ground Protection team can provide all the ground protection mats you need for your outdoor event, including temporary walkways, roadways, flooring, and more. Contact Sunbelt Rentals for ground protection for your upcoming festival, concert, stadium event, or beach party.