ARLINGTON, Texas — Planning for the impact of the World Series celebration started early at Arlington City Hall, and that planning included cleaning up the trash after the event ended. The go-to person for post-celebrations for the Texas Rangers World Series Parade was Keri Parker-Berry. She pulled together all the city departments and their municipal partners to make sure fans had a safe and memorable experience.
"I am the director of convention and event services for the entertainment district," Parker-Berry said. "I'm a little unique within the department, so I I'm the octopus, if you will, for the entertainment district. And I really depend on all of our city departments. And so, from public works and their managers, Sydney Kelley, more specifically. And then we have in parts of Ventura, Stafford in Michael Derek and Jeremy Ramsey and Wendy Pampas, they had all their different teams and so they divided and conquered, and we all came together to make it one."
Cleaning up the entertainment district had to be quick, concise and strategic, according to Parker-Berry. As expected, Rangers fans left tons of trash along the parade route and beyond.
But the city of Arlington had more than just the parade.
Parker-Berry said, "So, Texas life still goes on. One, Cowboy's still going on. EA Sports Stadium goes on, Six Flags is still happening. Hotels are still going on."
Arlington city work crews removed most of the trash from the parade within 24 hours to make way for street sweepers.
The takeaways for Parker-Berry and her staff? They can do better, including adding more porta potties. They also learned more about traffic enforcement plans to get more people out of the entertainment district in a timely manner.
Parker-Berry also shared that they learned why a ton of trash ended up on the ground instead in trash cans.
"They weren't branded. A lot of our trash cans weren't used, because people didn't know they were trash cans," she said.
She called the World Series parade practice for hosting the upcoming baseball All-Star games in Arlington, and eventually hosting the World Cup games.
Overall, Parker-Berry is proud of the way they've handled an event with more than a half million people in attendance, which taught them a lot about planning ahead as the sports world focuses on Arlington.
"That Arlington is equipped to do a big event safely? Arlington is equipped to do it in a clean manner, and when we came, we showed up," Parker-Berry said. "Yes, the fans came, they had fun and that was number one. We want them to have fun. We also want them to be safe. But they also returned home safely."
"And also the district was returned back to normal," she noted.