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Mr Jones wants to cover as much of his garden with marquees as possible

We recently had a visit by a Mr Jones, he was planning a party and wanted to extend his house in to the garden using marquees. This is a pretty common scenario for marquee hire companies especially during the winter months.

Mr Jones came in with a diagram of his garden with the marquees he thought he need, two 4x6m marquees, one 3.6×3.6m pagoda and one walkway:

The garden is not easy as it’s a very funny shape and on the surface this looks to do the job. My concerns were:

• Weathering to the house would be difficult. The 4x6m marquee against the house should at least be a 6x4m one for ease of weathering. A pagoda is sloped on all 4 sides and so difficult to weather against a house.
• There would be many joins. This is not a problem regarding weatherproofing with our guttering kits but it can be a hindrance to party atmosphere and circulation. The risk is the end 4x6m marquee would feel cut-off and under-used (note if this layout went ahead a good suggestion would be to put the food and/or drink in this 4x6m to ensure it is used).
• Walkways are ideal for connecting marquees together but in this scenario you aren’t really gaining any useable space by having the walkway in the middle there. It’s a bit like a sideways corridor.

So having explained all of this I suggested an alternative approach, a 4x12m marquee and a 4x4m marquee on the side:

• This is much easier to weather against the house (both marquees would have their flat gables towards the house)
• There is only one join and it is much easier to weather the two marquees side by side
• You have a larger main area for the guests to circulate.

Note that in this example Mr Jones is actually ending up with slightly less of his garden covered and my alternative option is cheaper than his original suggestion. I can however guarantee that this second idea will be an improvement on the atmosphere and circulation of the party.

As mentioned in other articles I would still recommend having the food and drink out in the marquee (maybe at the far end). People (especially blokes) linger by the bar, having the food and drink outside guarantees the marquees are used fully and everyone doesn’t end up in the kitchen.

Thanks for reading

Spencer