Even during the best of times, it can be challenging for event organisers to find a venue capable of hosting a largescale one-off event such as an awards show or a gala dinner. However, recently that task has become doubly-difficult with the onset of stringent regulations surrounding COVID-19.
While these regulations are of course necessary to protect us and prevent the spread of the virus, hosts have been posed a new challenge in the form of making their event COVID-secure. Fortunately, there are a few options available in order to increase the usable space of a venue, ensuring that those in attendance can remain at a safe distance from each other.
The best solution comes in the form of marquee hire. With a temporary marquee, you can not only briefly expand the space for the purposes of your event, but you can actually enhance it. But before we go into details regarding why marquees are such a fantastic solution in the current climate, let's take a look at which events are well-suited to the use of a marquee.
Which Events Are Suitable for Marquee Hire?
While answering this question is akin to asking how long a piece of string is, some events do lend themselves particularly well to using a marquee as a temporary solution to successfully staging COVID-secure events.
For example, it makes just as much sense to enlist the help of a marquee hire company in London for your corporate conference, as it does to hire a dedicated conference room in a hotel. With tightly-enclosed spaces viewed as the enemy in this ongoing battle against coronavirus, dozens of venues would benefit from additional outdoor space with another bonus coming in the form of protection from the elements
The following list is not exhaustive, but it gives you an insight into the types of events that could easily be supported with marquee hire:
• Conferences
• Graduation Ceremonies
• Corporate Events
• School Events
• Exhibitions and Trade Shows
• Festivals
• Product Launches
• Gala Dinners
• Weddings
• Birthday Parties
• Fashion Shows
• Music Concerts
• Live Performances
Again, those events represent a mere snippet of what's possible with the help of a marquee. But you may be wondering how or why they offer such an excellent event services solution. So let's start by addressing perhaps the main driver in increased use of marquees in the events industry.
Why Hire a Marquee for Your Event?
This is such a multifaceted question that we need to break in down into segments, but as we said, let's start by focusing on the elephant in the room as it were, COVID-19.
Marquee Hire Helps You to Create a COVID-Secure Venue
There's no doubt that the virus has had a devastating impact on the events industry. However, with the help of temporary structures such as marquees, many organisers and host have been able to transform locations into suitable venues for larger social gatherings.
The first point to note is the added temporary space a marquee can provide. As briefly touched upon above, social distancing is hard to maintain in tightly-packed indoor areas. However, with marquee attachments, you can double or even triple the floor space available to you.
This helps you, as the event host, to ensure the government-mandated distancing laws of 1-metre plus can be efficiently facilitated. But building a COVID-secure venue goes far beyond merely enforcing social-distancing between attendees. It's about creating adequate space between tables, implementing one-way systems, creating wide walkways, and ultimately providing a safe environment for on-site employees too.
The extra space afforded by hiring a marquee helps you to achieve that outcome.
Marquees Offer Speed and Flexibility
If one thing is for sure in the world at the moment, it's that the situation remains fluid, with restrictions and relaxations of the guidelines surrounding COVID-19 changing all the time. That means you may need to rely on a fast alternative to a more traditional venue hiring and setup process.
Given traditional marquees can be installed and removed very quickly, they represent an excellent solution when you have to hire a location upon short notice, or they can only hand over a venue to you for a limited period of time. Tight event schedules are very much part of the 'new normal', and speed is going to mean everything moving forward.
But regardless of the virus, marquee hire provides plenty of flexibility which is a desirable feature irrespective of current national and world events. For a start, you can have any floor, door, or wall configuration you wish. You can attach one to an existing building to create more space, or you could literally choose any suitable alternative location and set up a semi-permanent structure to accommodate your needs. The choice is yours.
There's flexibility internally too. Unlike physical buildings, you can choose your interior layout. You can decide where to put the stage you hired, create separate dining and bar areas with temporary interior walls, and have any internal configuration you want (within reason, of course!). This is not an option for your traditional venues, and so you might find yourself preferring the 'blank canvas' that marquee hire affords you.
Marquees Can Be Setup Near Enough Anywhere
As touched upon above, perhaps of the most prominent selling points of hiring a marquee for your event is that you can set one up pretty much anywhere. While it's always best to have flat ground, the only aspect you may need to check is whether or not you have any service pipes running underneath your proposed location and you'll also need to ensure your proposed site is free of overhead cables.
But that's pretty much it! Once you've ticked those boxes, you can choose any location you desire. You can set them up indoors or outdoors, on grass, on concrete, on high ground or low ground, it doesn't matter! As long as you have the necessary space, you can set up your marquee to dramatically increase the amount of available space at your location (or create your own).
Marquees Offer an Affordable Alternative
Given everything that is going on in the world, it might be the case that the budget for running your event has been tightened up significantly. Here, yet again, marquees hold a considerable advantage over their more-traditional counterparts. Hiring one is much cheaper than trying to book out the additional space you might need in a building.
By opting for marquee hire instead of a traditional conference venue (for example), you can accrue sizeable savings on overheads, pay a one-time, flat fee, and avoid the onerous security bonds often associated with some of the well-established conference venues in London.
In fact, you may be so pleasantly surprised by the price that you might start to consider a marquee-only event! With hire options such as framed marquees feeling very much like a building (despite their temporary nature), event organisers are looking at how they can shift their concepts' outdoors.'
There are Numerous Different Marquee Styles Available
A big selling point of marquee hire is that you can match the style of the marquee your hiring to your event. Contrary to popular belief, marquees are not merely large white tents. There is a plethora of shapes, designs, and structure types from which to choose.
For instance, if you're planning a wedding and you want to extend your wedding venue to include an outdoor marquee section, why not create a 'village' of connected giant tipis? The unique design of the totem poles sticking out of the top of each peak will add a quaint touch to your celebrations, and they offer an innovative location for a live band, DJ, and dancefloor.
By contrast, you may be planning a corporate event, and your usual venue cannot safely accommodate the expected number of guests. With framed marquee hire, you can not only effortlessly extend the available floor space, but given the way these specific marquees are constructed (with proper doors, walls, and windows), many guests may not even be aware that they are inside a temporary structure.
If you want to go for something extraordinary, why not invest in a clear marquee? These structures give you the appearance and experience of being outside, without any worries about what the weather may be doing. In actual fact, you'll almost be hoping to experience the magical effect of rain falling on the transparent ceiling. If that doesn't quite work out for you, your guests can always enjoy the sun setting or look up and gaze at the starry night sky!
Don't Forget the Associated Marquee Event Services
While marquee hire can provide the answer you're looking for in terms of expanding the usable space at your venue, you need to remember that the structure alone is not enough. Need to take into account the associated technical equipment that you'll need to hire. For example, for your conference, you'll need to hire audio visual equipment such as a projector, screen, PA speakers, and a stage or set.
Fortunately, here at On Tour Events, we can not only provide you with a stunning marquee, but we also offer all aspects of event production services. Whether you want to make use of our end-to-end wedding event services or you wish to expand the usable space at a conference venue, we have an unrivalled capability to provide a turn-key solution.
With starlit dance floors, LED-lit bars and furniture, cutting-edge sound equipment for hire, and one of the most extensive lighting inventories in the country, On Tour Events is your one-stop solution to the perfect marquee-based event. From graduation ceremonies to awards shows, we can also provide on-site sound engineers and lighting technicians to ensure your event runs smoothly on the day.
Why You Choose On Tour Events for Your Marquee Hire
Whether you're planning a corporate event or a trade show, adding a temporary marquee to your venue is an excellent solution to successfully navigating the regulations surrounding COVID-19. With increased floor space, better access to fresh air, and complete customisability, marquees are fast becoming the go-to solution for events looking to enhance their events and increase capacity.
If you’re looking for a marquee hire company in London and surrounding areas, then look no further! Here at On Tour Events, we can supply you with any style of marquee. Whether you need a semi-permanent framed marquee, or you need an exclusive trapeze-style design, we have it in place ready to be supplied. We realise that the current situation makes everything very fluid, which is why we are prepared to move at short notice if called upon.
So whether you're planning a beautiful outdoor wedding celebration, or you're looking to extend the usable space at your exhibition, why not get in touch with us to find out how we can help you to pull it off? We look forward to receiving your call!
On Tour Events: Technical Audio Visual Event Services London
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