When we first entered the marquee sales industry no one was really offering PVC marquees at reasonable prices. Your choices were either to go for cheap PE party tents or expensive PVC frame marquees. Then we came along
Since then others have now copied (with mixed results) and offer reasonably priced PVC marquees.

We offered our marquee linings with our marquees. Others have also copied (with even greater mixed results).

We lead, others follow. But then imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so we take it as a compliment.

So in our constant strive to bring you the best available options for your business we’re now offering 6m x 14m PVC Marquees. They’re made to the same high specifications as all of our DIY Marquee range but the greater length means you can fit in ten 5ft round tables – giving a seated capacity of up to 100!

We really think offering these will help the rental market and should offer you excellent returns on investment.We will of course be making linings and other accessories for them.

“Hello Jerry, remember last month when I paid back that loan, well now I need you to do a favour for me” Homer J Simpson
It’s in this spirit that we’re asking for a favour. After constant requests we’ve made some carry bags -these are mark II versions that have carry handles and top access, the mark I’s we made were basically sacks with drawstring that we weren’t willing to sell/let people use.

Anyway, we’ll be selling these bags at £6 + VAT each but we’d like some hire companies to provide some feedback for us so we’re willing to sell some at half price (£3 + VAT for those with Monday-morning rusty brains!) as long as you provide some feedback and/or photos.

Contact me if you’re interested.

Thanks for reading.

Spencer

A recent email exchange with someone in the industry annoyed me a little bit so I thought I’d explain on here -writing a blog is a form of therapy after all

 

For those who don’t realise there’s basically three types of marquee appropriate for marquee hire companies to use:

• Traditional canvas marquees
• Aluminium frame clearspan marquees
• Steel pipe frame clearspan marquees (like our DIY marquees)

There’s other gazebos, pop-ups and party tents available but none of them are really suited to the hire industry.

 

-Neither of us like traditional canvas marquees. They have their place for some companies but neither of us wanted to get involved with them.

-Both of us like aluminium frame structures, no argument there the 9m & 12m wide stuff is very impressive.

-But he’s missing a trick by not using steep pipe marquees for his 6m wide stock.

 

When I ran our hire company we had 6m, 9m and 12m wide marquees. 6m wide steel pipe marquees are the most lucrative, offering the best return on investment (ROI) of any of the 3 sizes.

In fact about the only thing we had that offered a better ROI was fairy lights (buy for £30, hire out for £30).

 

So for all you entrepreneurs out there who don’t suffer from marquee snobbery, here’s some figures:

 

 

 

I think it’s reasonable to assume:

-you have £8500 to spend

-you rent out a marquee for on average 20 weekends a year

-your profit is 50%

 

 

£130,800 vs £15,100!! I really don’t see there’s any argument.

 

As anyone will recognise this is a simplified version of a business. You can’t rely on getting 20 bookings all paying full price if you’re starting up a new company, but then that’s the case no matter which style of marquee you use.

This doesn’t take in to consideration extras like flooring, lighting, furniture etc which are all lucrative in their own right –a lot of companies refuse to do an empty marquee. Surely having 6 marquees gives you greater opportunity to make money from extras than having one marquee?

 

If you’re starting a business or replenishing your 6m wide stock buying DIY Marquees gives you the best return on investment available.

 

I’ve tried to state the facts and figures in an unbiased manner, I just think there’s a few people out there who need to remember why we’re in this business -putting food on your children’s plate/putting beer in your pint glass, whatever’s your motivation.

 

Thanks for reading, I hope I’ve given some people something to think about.

 

Spencer.

A few people thought I went a bit over the top in criticising breathable flooring a couple of weeks ago and point out that there’s a lot of people using it. And that’s true. But I hate it and find it pointless. Carpet is better for single events, matting is better as a long term investment, both will be less of a headache than breathable flooring. Hey it’s my opinion.

I don’t want this to be all about our DIY marquees (despite them obviously being the greatest thing since sliced bread), there are other, larger marquees for sale out there and they have their place in most larger marquee hire companies.

In our company we used our style of marquees for 6m (20ft) wide stuff, and aluminium modular frames for 9m and 12m wide tasks. Any job larger than 12m x 24m (four 6mx12m marquees connected) we’d use 9m or 12m modular kit. We also had some pagoda/witches hat marquees as entrance tents etc.
We needed a 9m wide marquee for this for example:

So here are some useful tips for when/if you buy some aluminium frame marquees:

1. Be careful when lifting. I blame my serious back injury purely on lifting 12m frames. Even now I’d happily lift our 6m marquees all day but there’s no way anyone would get me near 12m wide marquees.
2. Make sure the marquees are completely square, you can tell this by looking at the scalloped trim from a distance. It should be perfectly straight all the way along. If it’s not square your marquee will leak. We found this out the hard way, if the roofs aren’t on square the keader must be buckled slightly and it allows water in -this is why we designed our DIY Marquees to have roofs all in one piece.
3. When pulling the roofs on (using two ropes) clip a third rope on that gets pulled back over the marquee with the roof. This means the two pulling ropes can be clipped on to it and pulled back rather than throwing them again and again. Not sure I’ve explained this one too well but this saved us a LOT of time (ropes would get stuck round purlins regularly).
4. You shouldn’t need to use steps for these marquees: gables (pvc & uprights) can be put on and lifted with the frame, ropes should be put through the apex pulleys while down on the ground and lighting can be attached to the lining poles before they’re pulled in to the ceiling. The only reason we took steps was in case the roofs got caught when feeding over the apex. I’ve heard some people (braver or more stupid than me) actually climb up the frame when this happens! S*d that!
5. Be careful when strapping the roof beams on to a roof rack or trailer. It’s very easy to bend the beams doing this which weakens the structure and can result in them staying bent out of place.

There’s probably loads of other things that I’ve forgotten that we took for granted. If I remember any more I’ll post them.

Thanks for reading

Spencer.