Water Worx Interview: Karel Svoboda, TOI TOI

Their business is closely tied to every festival and major outdoor event. The name Toi Toi has become synonymous with—and the common term for—portable restroom units that virtually every festival-goer has used. The aforementioned company, Toi Toi, was the first to bring this product to the market in the Czech Republic. What were the early days like? Where has the company gone from there? Toi Toi Czech CEO Karel Svoboda shares this and much more.

Toi Toi has been active on the Czech event scene for a very long time. How did it all begin?

It all started in 1991, when I was working in Germany. I was a high school teacher at the time, so I spent my summer break in Germany doing temporary work—I worked in a pub and at a wholesale fruit and vegetable warehouse. There I met a man who made portable toilets and rented them out. That was something unheard of on the Czech market. It was completely new to me, too. And since I didn’t want to continue my teaching career, I was looking for something else. So the offer to represent Toi Toi in the Czech Republic was interesting, and I accepted it. But the negotiations took about two years. We officially founded the company in 1993. A year earlier, however, I already had the first toilets here, and I was taking care of them. I delivered the first toilets with my dad in a Favorit passenger car with a trailer. A construction company ordered all three toilets, and after 14 days, the site manager called me and said, “It says here in the brochure that a service vehicle will come every week to clean the toilets.” But we didn’t have a service vehicle here, so I had to order a sewage truck, which came and pumped them out. I arrived, washed them down, scrubbed them with a brush, dried them, and poured a chemical solution inside. And that went on for several months. And then, luckily—and I mean luckily—someone stole one toilet, a drunk driver smashed the second one, and the third one was returned to us. That company has been working with us to this day. That’s when we paused our operations for a while, and only then did they actually provide us with service vehicles, the first 20 toilets and the company started running as it should.

How many toilets do you have today?

Today we have 14,000 toilets. It all started with a chemical toilet—a toilet that doesn’t need a sewer system or a water connection. I call it the free-fall system—a collection tank containing a biological solution that prevents the decomposition of feces, which is why the toilet works. Because a lot of people think that the waste disappears and decomposes. On the contrary, the solution is designed to prevent decomposition.

You mentioned that it started with chemical toilets, but the product portfolio is much broader today, which must be the result of development over time. Does the new product development process come from you or from other international branches? And how does the development take place?

I’ve always said there’s not much room for innovation in those restrooms. The restroom hasn’t changed since 1992—maybe the design has changed, but the basic layout is the same. There’s usually a urinal there. But in 2000, we introduced toilets that already had a water tank; you could wash your hands—there was running water, liquid soap, and paper towels. Today, in line with the modern concept of sustainability, these toilets are made from 30% recycled fishing nets. We call them Dixi Green. Then we have cabins—this was during the COVID era—where a substance that kills up to 99% of all microorganisms is added to the plastic parts that people come into contact with, such as the seat, door, and dispensers. So that development is there. There are stalls that have a flush mechanism, and the water used for handwashing is collected in a tank so the stall can be flushed. I call it a free-fall system, but there are stalls that already have a flush mechanism.

So you offer various types of products?

We currently have 150 products. In 1996 and 1997, we rented our first portable office units in Germany—our parent company lent them to us for a fee—and we began offering them on the market. In 1998, we contacted a manufacturer of portable fencing and started renting out portable fencing here. Then came standalone barriers and foot-operated barriers. A year later, there was a golf tournament at Karlštejn, and they wanted a trough where players could wash their clubs and cleats. So we made a trough. Suddenly, at a festival, they told us, “We want troughs too.” So that’s how we brought troughs to market. Today we rent out cable bridges and surface protectors. We’re able to cover the entire surface of a soccer stadium to prevent the grass from being damaged. Today, hygiene standards at events are rising, so portable toilets just aren’t enough anymore. Specifically, a festival that used to rent 500 portable toilets now has 50, and everything else is in ceramic toilets and containers. Festival customers demand a higher standard. A lot is happening in the container sector. We have vacuum toilets that are environmentally friendly. Flushing one of these toilets requires 0.9 liters of water, whereas a standard toilet requires 8–9 liters.

Is the main part of your business shifting from portable toilets to containers?

It’s not that things are changing drastically, but certainly in terms of percentages. Revenue from portable toilets is declining, while revenue from containers is rising. Revenue from container rentals is clearly on the rise. It’s more financially demanding. A portable toilet costs 25,000 crowns, while a sanitation container costs half a million. It’s more expensive, but it’s rented out at a different rate than a portable toilet.

Since you have so much equipment and are able to cover events across the country, your work must be logistically demanding. How do you handle that?

We have a branch in every regional capital, where we have offices, drivers, a dispatcher, and a sales department. It all started in Slaný; the second branch was in Olomouc. That one was established after the Pope’s visit to the city in 1995. It was followed by Plzeň, Hradec Králové, České Budějovice, Brno, and Ostrava. In every city, we have a dispatcher who oversees the region and his drivers, assigning them work daily. At peak times, we have 9,500 portable toilets in fixed locations. On top of that, there are weekends when we have to deliver 2,500 units across the Czech Republic. Everyone would prefer to have them delivered by 2 p.m. on Friday and picked up on Sunday evening. But it doesn’t work that way. We start transporting toilets as early as Wednesday so we can pick them up from that location by Wednesday of the following week. So the logistics are relentless and demanding.

Do you experience any seasonality?

We’re very seasonal. In Germany, there’s no such thing—sales there drop by 10% in the winter, but ours plummet to about half. As I mentioned, we have 9,000 portable toilets on lease; in the winter, that number drops to 5,000. Then there’s the associated demand for storage space—when 5,000 toilets are returned, that’s 6,000 square meters, plus the return of containers and fences. The storage requirements are enormous. In Slaný, we bought a 17,000-square-meter site 20 years ago. I wondered what we’d do with it, but today we’re renting two more. In Slaný alone, we have 30,000 square meters for storing materials.

You have a lot of experience. How do you perceive the shift on the part of festival promoters and their approach?

Definitely in the professionalism of the organizational teams. When I think back to how, in 1996, I rented the walkways and entrance corridors in Germany for the Rolling Stones concert at Letná. The band asked me for some plans, but even the production team didn’t have them. Today, when I see the professionalism of Czech production companies—how they design and prepare festivals—it’s just as good, if not better, than in Germany today.

We’ve been working together on festival events for some time now—I’m referring to Waterworx and Toi Toi. What do you see as the benefits of this collaboration, and where do you see it heading in the future?

It’s about being able to offer the client a comprehensive service. The trend is that producers want to have as few suppliers as possible. When I tell them I’ll deliver the containers, bring them water, and take care of the waste, they welcome it. That’s where I see the strength—in improving the overall service.