
The Garden Party
Each year The LGBT Community Center in New York City kicks off Pride Week with their annual Garden Party fundraiser. By purchasing a ticket, over 2,000 attendees got access to over 30 food and drink vendors stationed across Pier 84 in New York City. However, the scenic waterfront venue is not equipped with power. So rather than hauling in noisy and polluting generators, the event organizers Shadowbox Design Management and ATD Productions decided to use Gridless Power.
Quick Facts
11
Gridless 7000’s
13
Gridless 1000’s
2,000
Attendees
9 Hours
of Power
All of the Power. None of the Drawbacks.
Generators have been the preferred solution for events for quite some time, however, they have always had drawbacks in terms of cost, noise, and emissions. Gridless batteries were developed to solve the problems while delivering an equivalent amount of power.

Simple: No Permits
No permits necessary. Just plug in like a normal outlet.

Safe: No Fumes
No dangerous fumes allows for indoor operation.

Quiet: No Noise
No loud background noise during your event.
Mobile – Reduce Setup, Permit, and Labor Costs
Using Gridless batteries, the organizers of the Garden Party were able to reduce setup time and lower labor costs. Setup for an event like this can take well over 24 continuous hours and require over 30 people to set up lighting, staging, audio equipment, and power. Not having to worry about permits, inspections, and fuel saved them hours of time and hundreds in fees. Furthermore, Gridless units are easily movable by a single person which allowed them to route power faster than a traditional generator.

Event map plotted with Gridless deployments
Clean – Place them Indoors or Outdoors
Clean power was vital for the Garden Party because they needed to deploy power across the pier. No fumes mean that they could skip the long cable runs and put units wherever they where needed, even indoors or heavily trafficked areas.

Quiet – Listen to the Music, Not the Generator Hum
Due to the Gridless Batteries’ silent operation, the speakers and musical performances did not have to compete with a noisy generator for volume. The removal of generators made for better musical performances and an enhanced participant experience as the organizers were able to remove the annoying hum.

Range Analysis
The event consumed just under 32,000 Wh of power for a period of 3.5 hours. Due to a storm that rolled in, the event was cut short of its intended 4 hour length. The Gridless units powered everything from cooking equipment to lighting. Below is a breakdown of all of the equipment powered by the Gridess units.
The estimate overshot the actual power need by over a factor of three. This is because the equipment is not always being used or used at its full level. For example, the power consumption from a set of speakers running at half volume is significantly less than at full volume. So, the event organizers could rest easy about their power estimates due to the fact that the equipment’s rated power levels typically reflect maximum consumption not reflect actual power consumption during normal use.
Cost Saving Using Gridless
From a cost perspective, Gridless battery systems proposed significant advantages for the Garden Party. Any generator that would be large enough for an event like this would require a permit with an onsite inspection from the local fire company. These permits range between $400 and $600 depending on the size of the generator and the location. Furthermore, the event would have required multiple generators given its size. Factoring in fuel and transport costs, generators can be significantly more expensive than the equivalent Gridless battery setup.
Yet, the real savings are in the reduced “distro” or power distribution costs. When using generators you are forced to route power from a single or few sources to all of your locations that need power. This process is very expensive as it requires multiple employees to run extension cords to each piece of equipment, then cover them using either gaffer tape or a cable covers.
The organizers of the Garden Party were able to cut distribution down significantly by rolling Gridless units right up to booths. A couple people would have been able to distribute all 24 Gridless units in under an hour or a whole team in just a few minutes. Therefore, the organizers were able to finish
Want to learn more about how Gridless Power is used in events? Click here to learn how Gridless Powers Concerts.
Go Gridless
There are a lot of reasons to go Gridless, but for the Garden Party organizers it was the ability to reduce costs and remove the drawbacks from generators. There is always a balance between improving the event experience and cost, but with Gridless you can enhance your event quality while putting money back in your pocket.