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Erecting marquees on hard surfaces

Our DIY Marquees like most commercial quality ones can be erected on hard standing. There is the small issue of how to anchor the marquee down (answer: longer tie downs to a nearby soft surface, bolting or use heavy weights) but otherwise it is easily done.

There is one small issue which you should make your customer aware of and that is what happens when it rains (and I’m not talking about our funny on the FAQ page). If a patio normally floods in heavy rain, a marquee won’t stop that occurring. If the hard standing has a slope then water may try to flow through the marquee.

The risks of this happening are usually very slight and whilst it’s worth mentioning to customers it’s not worth going overboard or scaremongering about it. If the forecast is bad there are some solutions:

• Wooden floor throughout – this raises the floor up so the water passes under. The best solution but also by far the most expensive and most work.
• sandbags or similar round the perimeter of the marquee.
• strips of carpet underneath the groundbars – this was suggested to me recently by a marquee hire company and I think it’s an excellent and resourceful idea. Strips of old carpet rolled up and then squashed underneath the groundbars cuts out all but torrential rain from making its way in to the marquee.

Thanks for reading

Spencer