Power Distribution It’s a French Food Festival

BBR Festival or the ‘French Food Festival’ takes over Sydney’s iconic location of th e Circular Quay Foreshore to bring a unique and entirely free annual gathering around French Culture. Like any festival, temporary power and power distribution are essential to run the attractions.

BBR organisers, once again, approached Active Air Ren tals to provide temporary power and distribution to the four villages and 90+ stall holders for the event.

In 2017 the four-day Festival was set up across four sites along the Circular Quay Foreshore, including an outdoor cinema in front of the Museum of Contemporary Arts.

The Challenge

The expected foot traffic was over 350,000, so safety was paramount in running cables from the power source to the various stall holders.

With over 90 stall holders across four villages located in different areas; East Circular Quay, AMP, Customs House and First Fleet Park, meant the biggest challenge for power distribution was working out how we would run cables without crossing roads and while working around Pitt Street, taxi ranks, and buses.

Each stall had their unique power requirements; some would need to run fridges, cooking equipment, lights, EFTPOS machines etc., requiring up to 12 power outlets at each stall.

The Solution

“We knew we had to use a few different ways to distribute the power to the various sites. The locations are high traffic areas, and a hub for commuters using public transport.” Says Dominic Cook, Project Manager, Active Air Rentals.

“We came up with a few strategies in our plan the ensure the safety of pedestrians and guests; This included aerial cable runs for power distribution; which is essentially running cabling up poles and across roads, out of the foot and road traffic way.” Continues Dom.

“We used our accessible cable covers in high traffic areas to ensure power distribution cable runs on the ground could be crossed safely.”

Working with BBR organisers, we were able to commission a solution that used both mains supply and generators to power the event. The Active Air Rentals team bumped in the solution at 4am to ensure no disruption to bus routes and public transport.

We installed hundreds of cable covers and accessible cable covers to cover cable runs from strategically placed distribution boardsensuring the safety of visitors across the four sites.

Our power generation and distribution solution ran smoothly across the 56 opening hours of the festival.

“We have been relying on Active Air to take on all the electrical aspects of our festival for  3 years. The team is professional, very pleasant to deal with, always ready to help and would do anything to fix your problem. When you organise very large food events, knowing that your electrical supplier would do it’s best and will be there to assist with any issues is very precious. Thanks again for the good work on Bastille Festival.” Vincent Hernandez, BBR AGENCY – director.

The festival was a great success, it was like France had come to visit, and we can’t wait for next year.

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