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Marquee Dance Floor Options:
The Hire cost of a marquee is usually between a third and a half of the purchase price, for this reason if you are using a marquee more than once it is often more practical to buy rather than hire. Dance floors and furniture are different, the hire charge is usually around a tenth of the purchase price, combine that with the fact that a dance floor is often heavier than the marquee it sits in and hiring is often a popular solution.
There are three common finishes to a dance floor: plain wooden (usually stained plywood), parquet (interlocking wooden blocks) or black & white (square acrylic panels similar to a chess board).
If you own your own (hopefully DIY) Marquee then these are the most popular solutions:
Hire in the dance floor:
- As discussed above unless you are using a dance floor 10+ times it is more economic to hire rather than buy
- Whoever you hire it from (furniture hire company or marquee hire company) will generally lay it and pick it back up again -this is useful as dance floors can be very heavy!
- Similarly dance floor boards can often take up more storage room than the marquee itself so you are saving on storage space
Buy a dance floor:
- We can pass on the details of several dance floor manufacturers that are used by most of the marquee hire industry, they make strong and reliable dance floors that will last for years with minimum maintenance.
- Avoid cheap plastic interlocking tiles, I have yet to see such a system that looks good and will stand up to the abuse dance floors can face (though I'm sure the industrywill make one soon enough)
- This is the most expensive option
Make a dance floor:
- Standard wooden dance floors are reasonably straight forward to make - simply use 18mm plywood with battens screwed on the back and use clips or screws to hold each panel in place
- The plywood can be stained using a wood stain (or even painted) to whatever finish you would like
- It's usually worth cutting large boards in half (8x4 down to 8x2) to make them easier to carry and store
- Cost the project out beforehand, buying plywood from a wholesaler is competitive but if you have to buy it from B & Q or similar then you may find buying a new boarded tent floor is more economic (as the manufacturers buy materials in bulk)
These are the most popular solutions when organising a marquee dance floor.
We are always happy to offer more customised advice for your event, please contact us giving a few details of the event you are planning (type of event, space available, number of guests and diagrams/photographs of the site if possible) and we will be more than happy to advise on your options.
If you would like to use or quote any part of this article please contact us for permission or licencing.
