Event production in Okeechobee
where one decibel figure applies around the clock and the event permit is what lifts it

The City of Okeechobee code has no parks and recreation chapter and no special events chapter. The general-ordinance chapters are 1, 2, 6, 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, 30, 34, 38, 42, 46, 50, 54, 58 and 62, and neither subject has a chapter of its own among them. A producer looking for the page that says how to hold a concert in a city park will not find one in the code.

What exists instead is three documents that do not refer to each other. The first is a noise article, Chapter 30, Article III, adopted as Ord. No. 875 on October 19, 2004. The second is a single section on park hours in Chapter 46. The third is an application form: the city's Park Use / Temporary Street Closing packet, the version dated 051324, which is May 13, 2024. Insurance, alcohol, clean-up, the council date and the tent rules are all in the form, and none of them is in the code.

That split is the first thing worth knowing. A producer who reads only the code misses the insurance, the alcohol rule, the clean-up window and the council date. A producer who reads only the form misses the decibel ceiling and the load-out hours. Both are binding on the same Saturday, and the order of this page follows the order a production meets them: the sound rules first, then the park, then the application, then the ground and the buildings.

Every section number, hour and figure below is quoted from the code as it stands in the Municode library, current code version September 15, 2025, read October 16, 2026, or from the city's own packet. Where a source does not publish a figure, this page says it is not published instead of supplying one.

All On Stage Productions is a production company for concerts, festivals, municipal and civic events and outdoor builds across Florida and beyond. Okeechobee is read here the way every city on the South Florida event production hub is read: from the owner's own published words.

Section 30-85 is titled Peak noise levels. In full, it says that except as otherwise restricted in the chapter, any noise emitted within the city at any time of the day or night shall not exceed 55 d.b.a. (decibels).

That is the entire section, and the shape of it is the point. It is a single flat figure. It states no time band, so there is no hour after which a different number applies. It states no night-time curfew. It states no measurement distance, so the text does not say how far from the source the reading is taken. And it has no zone-by-zone table, so the same figure is written for every part of the city.

On the face of the section, then, the ceiling applies by day as well as by night. A sound line built on an hour, such as the 10 p.m. line in Clewiston, lets a producer plan a show around a finish time: amplified sound runs until the hour and stops. Okeechobee's section does not work that way. It sets one number around the clock, and nothing in it tells a producer when the number stops applying.

The practical consequence is that an amplified show in Okeechobee is not planned around a finish time. It is planned around Sec. 30-83(2) and Sec. 30-84. The first is the exemption for a permitted event. The second is the standard for a deviation. The next two sections take them in turn, because between them they are the whole route from a 55 d.b.a. ceiling to a show with a PA.

Section 30-83 lists the noises the article does not reach. There are five.

• (1) Authorized safety signals and warning devices.
• (2) An authorized emergency vehicle responding to an emergency call, acting in time of emergency or any other public safety operation, or during an authorized and permitted fair, parade or public event.
• (3) Emergency work, defined as work necessary to restore property to a safe condition after a public calamity, or work required to protect persons or property from imminent exposure to danger.
• (4) Noises incidental to the activities of bona fide agricultural activities.
• (5) Noises or vibrations associated with uses or activities for which an administrative approval to produce them has been obtained from the office of general services or the city administrator.

Exemption (2) is the one that matters for a permitted event. Its last clause is the only place in the article where a fair, a parade or a public event is mentioned, and it is written as a condition: the event has to be authorized and permitted. An event with neither is not covered by it.

Set that against the 55 d.b.a. ceiling and the structure becomes clear. In Okeechobee the event permit is what lifts the noise article, rather than sitting alongside it. In a city whose noise rules and event rules are separate documents that never mention each other, the permit would be one thing to satisfy and the sound line another. Here, on the face of the two sections, the permit is the route out of the ceiling. A fair, a parade or a public event that is authorized and permitted is exempt during the event.

This page states only what the sections say. The scope of the exemption for a given event is a thing to have confirmed in writing by the city rather than assumed. The text does not say whether the exemption covers the soundcheck, the load-in, or the hours around the show, and it does not say whether a private concert on private property counts as a public event. Those are questions for the city administrator, and the answer belongs in the approval itself.

Exemption (5) is the second route. Noise or vibration for which an administrative approval has been obtained from the office of general services or the city administrator is exempt. That is a separate path from the event exemption in (2), and the application packet described below is addressed to the General Services Department.

Section 30-84 is how a use that does not fit the article asks to depart from it. A deviation from the chapter may be granted by the city administrator, who considers four things.

• (1) Whether the proposed use or activity necessarily warrants a deviation.
• (2) Whether the noise or vibration is compatible with surrounding land use so as not to create an unreasonable disturbance to adjacent properties.
• (3) Whether the applicant has taken, or will take, all effort to limit excessive noise or vibration to meet the intent of the chapter.
• (4) In those cases where the use or activity is proposed between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., whether those hours serve a public, civic or charitable purpose, whether they are necessary, and whether the noise and vibration are minimized to the greatest extent.

Items (1) to (3) apply at any hour. They ask for a reason, a neighbor test and evidence of effort. The third is the one a production office can answer with a drawing: where the speakers face, how the arrays are aimed away from the nearest residential blocks, where the delay towers sit, and what the front-of-house position is doing to keep the level at the audience rather than past it.

Item (4) is different in kind. It sets the scrutiny band at 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. and asks whether those hours serve a public, civic or charitable purpose. That is not the same question as whether the event is loud. A loud event can be one that serves a civic purpose, and a quiet one can fail to. The question the section asks is about the reason for the hours, and a municipal or civic event can answer it in a way a private one cannot.

Most noise codes talk about music. This one also talks about trucks. Section 30-82(5), titled Loading or unloading of vehicles, opening of bales and boxes, makes it unlawful to make, create, permit or maintain any loud or excessive noise in connection with the loading or unloading of any motor vehicle, or the opening or destruction of bales, boxes, crates or containers, between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., in a zoning district adjoining a residential zoning district, that would disturb the peace, quiet and comfort of residents of the area.

This is a load-out rule written by name. A stage show ends with a truck, a ramp and cases, and the loading of them at night is what the subsection is about.

Two other subsections of section 30-82 touch a production, and both are about vehicles. Subsection (2) makes it unlawful for any vehicle in the city to use radio, tape or CD player amplifiers and speakers so that the sound causes excessive sound or vibration that can be heard and felt within 100 feet of adjoining motor vehicles, pedestrians or residents. Subsection (4) makes it unlawful to repair, rebuild, race or test the engine or motor of any motor vehicle, including vessels, airboats, motorcycles or farm equipment of every nature, in any zoning district in which a residential use is permitted, between 9:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m., in such a manner as to disturb the peace, quiet and comfort of residents. Subsection (6) adds streets adjacent to a school, a day care center, a church, a hospital, or a nursing or assisted living facility, where excessive noise that unreasonably interferes with the institution or unduly annoys patients is unlawful.

Enforcement is in section 30-86. The article may be investigated, cited and enforced by any authorized city code enforcement officer, or any certified law enforcement officer or firefighter employed by the city. Where an officer gives the owner or operator of a commercial business a warning to cease and desist the excessive noise or the boisterous conduct causing it, that warning includes a warning that closure may result, and the article then turns on whether an officer must return to the same business within two hours of the initial warning.

Subsection (7) is titled Construction equipment and activity. It makes it unlawful to operate any motorized equipment in conjunction with, or to perform, any outside construction, maintenance or repair work on buildings, structures, roads or other projects within the city, in any zoning district, between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., unless a special permit for such activity is issued by the city administrator on the basis of good cause or public emergency.

The contrast with the loading rule in the previous section is the part to hold on to. Subsection (5) is limited to a district adjoining a residential one. Subsection (7) says in any zoning district. There is no map test to pass. And the exception is not a noise deviation: it is a special permit from the city administrator, granted on good cause or public emergency.

An overnight build that runs motorized equipment is therefore a different approval from the ones before it. A stage build that is going to run through the night with a telehandler, a forklift or a lift moving trusses and decks reads naturally as motorized equipment used in conjunction with outside work on a structure. Whether a temporary stage is a structure in this sense is the city's call, and it is the sort of question to put to the administrator before the build is scheduled, not on the first night.

Count what can touch a single overnight build. Three administrative approvals can reach it, and they are not one form.

• The special permit under section 30-82(7), issued by the city administrator on good cause or public emergency.
• The deviation under section 30-84, granted by the city administrator on the four considerations, with the evening-band question about public, civic or charitable purpose.
• The park-use application under the city's packet, returned to the General Services Department and reviewed by seven departments and officers.

The special permit is separate from the noise deviation, and separate again from the park-use application. They are decided by overlapping people on different grounds. A production office that assumes the park-use approval carries the other two will find that it does not say so, and the work is easiest when each approval is asked for by name.

The permit's own test is good cause or public emergency, so a build that runs overnight is asking for an exception and has to be able to say why. The sections that follow show where that fits in a day: the park is open until 10:00 p.m., and the overnight band begins at 8:00 p.m., so a build planned in the evening spends its first two hours inside both rules at once.

Chapter 46 has three articles: I, In General; II, Driveways; and III, Public Places. Article III contains exactly one section, Sec. 46-51. So the entire codified law on the city's parks is one section about hours. It is carried as new in the current supplement.

The section runs in five parts.

• (a) All public parks within the City of Okeechobee are open to the public from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily, unless otherwise posted or permitted by the city.
• (b) It is unlawful to enter or remain in any city park outside those hours without prior written authorization from the city administrator or their designees.
• (c) The exceptions are designated holidays as determined by the city council, during which parks may have extended or modified hours; special events including but not limited to parades, festivals and community gatherings which have received prior approval from the city administrator or their designees; and specific park areas or facilities that may have different hours as posted on-site or on the city's official website.
• (d) The city administrator or designees may at their discretion modify the hours for specific parks or for special circumstances, provided proper notice is given to the public through signage, the city's official website and local media outlets.
• (e) The section does not apply to city employees, law enforcement officers or emergency personnel performing official duties, or to individuals or groups with valid special use permits for after-hours use.

For a producer the working sentence is subsection (c): special events, including parades, festivals and community gatherings, are an exception when they have received prior approval. Subsection (b) requires the authorization in writing, and subsection (e) recognizes a special use permit for after-hours use. A show that is to run beyond 10:00 p.m. in a park, or a crew that is to be in one before 6:00 a.m., is working from one of those documents.

Now put the section next to the loading rule. Section 46-51 keeps a city park open until 10:00 p.m. Section 30-82(5) restricts loading and unloading a vehicle, and opening crates and boxes, from 8:00 p.m. in any district adjoining a residential one. A permitted evening show in a downtown square therefore has two hours in which the park is still open and the truck is already constrained.

Three neighboring sections are worth naming by title only. Chapter 46 also carries Sec. 46-1, Blocking or obstructing, and Sec. 46-5, Excavations. Sec. 46-4, Equipment likely to damage pavement, makes it unlawful on the paved streets of the city to drive, or cause to be driven, any motor or caterpillar tractor equipped with cleats or projections of any kind whatsoever, or to drive, push or drag any disk, harrow or rake. That is relevant to tracked plant and steel-tracked lifts reaching a downtown site. In the nuisances article of Chapter 30, Sec. 30-48 is titled Smoking in city parks prohibited.

The strike plan and the permit conversation both have to deal with those two hours explicitly. Practically that means a few specific questions. Does the approval for the event say anything about loading and unloading after 8:00 p.m.? Is the site in a district adjoining a residential one, so that the subsection applies at all? Does the exemption for a permitted event in section 30-83(2) reach the load-out, or only the show? And if the answer is unclear, does the production stage the heavy movement before 8:00 p.m. and leave the quiet work for the evening?

The city's own application is where most of the working rules are. The application and the insurance certificate are to be returned to the General Services Department thirty (30) days prior to the event.

A park use application is reviewed by seven offices: the Fire Department, the Building Official, Public Works, the Police Department, the BTR Department, the City Administrator and the City Clerk. Seven reviewers is a long list for a single form, and it is the reason the thirty days are not a courtesy.

A street or sidewalk closing is a different animal. It must be approved by the City Council, which meets on the first and third Tuesdays, subject to change. Say it plainly: a street closing is not a thirty-day lead time. It is a thirty-day lead time that must also land on a council agenda. The form is due thirty days out, and the council only sits on two Tuesdays a month. A closing whose thirty days end on the Wednesday after a meeting is a closing waiting for the next one, and that moves the real deadline earlier than the thirty days suggest.

The packet carries the rest of what a producer needs to price and plan.

• Insurance. Liability coverage must name the City of Okeechobee as additional insured. For a street or sidewalk closing, the R.E. Hamrick Testamentary Trust must also be named as an additional insured. The limit is the limit the application states.
• Non-profit status. Parks applicants must also provide proof of non-profit status. The packet states it for parks applicants, which is a question about who the applicant is, and it is worth asking the General Services Department what proof it expects before the form is filed.
• Costs. The applicant is responsible for the city's actual costs, including Police and Fire services, and must indemnify the city. The city may require a cashier's check or an advance deposit, and any unused amount is refunded. The amounts are the ones the application sets.
• Clean-up. Clean-up is required within 24 hours. Dumpsters and port-o-lets are required when a street is closed for more than three hours.
• Alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are not allowed in city parks, city streets or city sidewalks. Alcohol may be served only on private property, with the appropriate state alcoholic beverage license.

The parks named on the city's application are the Flagler Parks. The list is short and the city numbers it.

• City Hall Plaza.
• Number 1: Veterans Memorial Square.
• Number 2: Speckled Perch Square.
• Number 3: Seminole Square, which the application identifies as the location of the gazebo.
• Number 4: Settlers Square, which the application identifies as the location of the bandstand.
• Number 5: Cattlemen's Square.
• Number 6: Butterfly Square.

The two parenthetical identifiers, the gazebo and the bandstand, are reproduced here exactly as the city writes them. This page adds nothing to either. It does not describe them, and it does not say anything about their size, their condition or whether they suit a performance. The application names a location and stops, and so does this page.

Where the nearest residential district begins, whether the street beside a square would need to close, where power comes from and where the truck can stand are all questions for a site visit before the form goes in. No source read for this page publishes a power figure for any of the squares.

The same packet carries the fire department's tent permit requirements. They are specific, and they are the kind of numbers a drawing can be checked against.

• The threshold. A tent permit is required for tents of 900 square feet or more. Smaller tents are exempt.
• The submittal. Three copies of a flame-resistance certificate to NFPA 701, and a computer-generated floor plan. Hand-drawn plans are not accepted.
• Egress. At least three exits; a 44-inch minimum exit width; a 75-foot maximum travel distance; and a 48-inch minimum aisle width.
• Signs. "No Smoking" signs in 2-inch letters must be posted at each entrance.
• Electrical. Wiring must be rated for exterior use and not overloaded. Temporary conductors laid on outdoor surfaces must be physically protected from foot and vehicle traffic.

Read as a production brief, two items stand out. The first is the floor plan. A computer-generated plan is a requirement, so the drawing a production office makes anyway for a tent, with the stage, the barricade, the exits and the aisles, is the document the fire department wants. A sketch is not accepted.

The second is the cable. Temporary conductors on outdoor surfaces have to be physically protected from foot and vehicle traffic. That is a plain description of a cable ramp, a cable cover or a trench, and it applies to every run that crosses a path a person or a cart will use. In a downtown square with a crowd, that is every run that leaves the stage.

The Okeechobee County Agri-Civic Center and Fairgrounds is the county's principal ground for large gatherings. The county's own Facility Amenities and Detail page publishes the following, and these are the only figures the building publishes. They are the only ones allowed on this page.

• Covered arena. Seating for over 4,000. The floor is 260 by 125 feet, which the county states as 32,500 square feet. The surface is 70/30 clay/sand. Fifteen 24-foot Rite Hite overhead fans.
• Outdoor warm-up arena. 225 by 125 feet, clay/sand surface.
• Horse barn. 35,000 square feet of floor space; 132 stalls currently configured; an outdoor warm-up pen of 200 by 125 feet.
• Fair Circle. 10 acres, up to 100 amp electrical, and water.
• Fair Field. 3 and a half acres, limited electrical.
• Festival Field. 8 and a half acres, adjacent to a 400-space parking lot. A second Festival Field of 6 and a half acres.
• RV campground. 50 sites with water and electrical.
• Total site. 190 acres.

The arena arithmetic is the county's own, and it checks. The floor is 260 by 125 feet, and the county states the area as 32,500 square feet.

Now the other half, which matters at least as much. The county does not publish a ceiling or clear height for the covered arena, a loading dock or drive-in door count, a stage dimension, a house power figure for the arena itself, or a square footage for any hall or room other than the arena and the barn. Concession stands and restrooms are listed with no measurements. The only parking figure is the 400-space lot beside the Festival Field.

Each of those omissions is something a production needs. The clear height decides whether a PA can be flown at all, and from what. The door count and size decide how a truck gets a deck, a console or a screen into the arena. A stage dimension decides whether a production brings its own. A house power figure for the arena decides whether the arena can feed a show or whether the show feeds itself. None of them is on the page, and this page does not fill them in.

The county also publishes no capacity, no size, no electrical, no water and no lighting figure for any facility on its Pavilions and Rental Facilities page. The only numbers on that page are counts of courts and pavilions. The next paragraphs list what it does say, and nothing more.

• Sports Complex, 580 NW 27th Lane: 2 pavilions, 8 tennis courts, 2 basketball courts, 2 racquetball courts, a wooden jungle playground and a pool.
• Kiwanis Park, 350 NW 6th Avenue: 2 tennis courts, a picnic pavilion, a playground and a skate park.
• Alton Chandler Civic Center, also known as the Basinger Community Center: picnic pavilion, horseshoe pits, outdoor grill, playground and kitchen.
• Douglas Brown Community Center, 826 NE 16th Avenue: picnic pavilion, playground, stage, kitchen and basketball courts. The page does not say whether the stage is indoor or outdoor and does not give it a dimension, and this page does not describe it further.
• Okeechobee County Civic Center, 1750 Highway 98 North: picnic pavilion, dining hall and serving kitchen.
• C. Scott Driver Recreation Area, 10101 State Road 78 West: boat ramps, tournament headquarters, pavilion, dining hall, restrooms and waterfront.

The county states the covered arena's surface as 70/30 clay/sand. That is not a concrete deck, and the difference changes how a stage is built on it.

A rig that stands on concrete is placed and leveled. A rig on a clay/sand floor is spread. Towers and stage decks are carried on bearing plates rather than point-loaded, so that the load is shared across more surface than a leg or a caster would give. The surface moves with moisture, and it moves with whatever was groomed into it the week before. A floor that was worked for one use and watered for another does not present the same face on the day of load-in as it did on the day of the survey.

That is why a rig designed for a hard floor is re-engineered rather than re-sited. Sliding the same drawing to a different spot does not make the same drawing valid. The bearing plates, the leveling and the checks on the surface after the first load are part of the design, and they are drawn before the trucks leave. The same goes for any heavy plant on an open field: a lift or a telehandler on soft ground needs its own spreading.

Open field is a different problem. The Fair Circle, the Fair Field and the two Festival Fields are fields, and a field has no ceiling. It also has no power unless somebody brings it. The county publishes up to 100 amp at the Fair Circle and limited electrical at the Fair Field. The first is a fairground service, there for vendors and small loads. Anything approaching a concert PA, a lighting rig and video carries its own generator and distribution. The building is not described as able to feed a show, and this page does not suggest that it can.

The covered arena has the opposite problem. The county publishes no clear height for it. Trim, which is the height at which a rig hangs, depends on the clear height, and so the number that decides it comes from a site survey and not from the website.

The pattern across the places a show happens here is consistent. Four of them publish no production drawing between them: the covered arena, the Douglas Brown stage, the county rental facilities and the festival's own 830-acre grove. On a page like this that is not a gap to apologize for. It is the reason the first site visit carries a tape measure, a meter and a camera. What a producer measures on that visit:

• With the tape: the clear height at the lowest point of the roof structure, the width and height of every door a truck or a deck must pass through, the distance from the truck to the stage position, and the dimensions of the stage position itself.
• With the meter: the service available at each power point, what it is rated for, and how far it is from the load. And on the day of the survey, the ambient sound level at the nearest residential edge, to compare with the 55 d.b.a. figure in section 30-85.
• With the camera: every approach, every gate, the surface underfoot after rain if the season allows, the overhead obstructions on the route in, and the line from the stage to the nearest neighbor.

Sunshine Grove is an 830-acre private property in Okeechobee County, owned and operated by Soundslinger, and it is the home of the Okeechobee Music and Arts Festival. It is named here as a site and as the festival's home, and for no other purpose.

The festival's venue page describes the terrain as sweeping grasslands and pine and palmetto jungles, with expansive lakes and waterways. It states that the site is less than a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Orlando, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Those are the facts the page publishes about the place.

It publishes no street address, no camping detail, no stage information, no parking figure and no power figure. That is stated here because it is the same pattern as the county buildings above: a place with large claims about its size and its setting, and no production drawing a stranger could plan from.

What a private site changes is the question of which rules apply. A property outside the city limits is not in the City of Okeechobee, and the city's noise article and park-hours section are written for the city. This page does not say which authority governs a given parcel, because that depends on where the parcel sits, and it is for the county and the city to say. What can be said is that the 55 d.b.a. figure in section 30-85 applies to noise emitted within the city, and it is the city's article.

All On Stage Productions produces concerts, festivals, municipal and civic events, outdoor builds, street closings, fairground and field work, and load-ins on sites that have no building. The scope on a job like the ones this page describes is the stage, the sound, the lighting, the video, the power and the tenting, planned together and drawn once.

What this page offers is a method rather than a reference. The way to approach a show in Okeechobee is the order of the sections above:

• Start with the ceiling. Work out which of the two doors the show goes through: the exemption for an authorized and permitted public event in section 30-83(2), or a deviation under section 30-84. Get the answer in writing, with the scope of the exemption stated.
• Draw the two hours. The park is open until 10:00 p.m. and the loading rule starts at 8:00 p.m. The strike plan is written around the gap.
• Count the approvals. A special permit under section 30-82(7), a deviation under section 30-84 and the park-use application are three documents and are asked for by name.
• Put the street closing on the council calendar. First and third Tuesdays, with the thirty days counted back from the meeting.
• Put the bar on private property. The packet does not allow alcohol in parks, on streets or on sidewalks.
• Send the tent drawing to the fire department. A computer-generated plan, three exits, 44-inch exits, 48-inch aisles and a 75-foot travel distance.
• Measure what nobody publishes. Clear height, doors, power, surface and the line to the nearest neighbor.

Okeechobee sits among the places on the South Florida event production hub, and its code reads differently from its neighbors. Clewiston writes a festival article of its own and an hours-based sound line. On the coast, Fort Pierce and Port St. Lucie are read from their own chapters, with their own numbers. What applies in one does not carry over to the next, and each page is the place to read that city's rules in its own words.

Venues and sites named on this page are named as public places and from their owners' published pages. Nothing here describes a relationship with any of them.