Marquees, DIY Party Tents, Classic Marquees

DIY Wedding - Marquee Style - Maple Weddings and EventsA marquee can be a versatile and elegant setting for a variety of events. If you’re planning to hire a marquee for an event, here is some marquee hire advice that could be useful.

Consider the type of event you’re planning: The type of event you’re hosting will determine the size and style of marquee you need. For example, a wedding may require a more formal and elegant marquee, while a festival or outdoor party may require a more casual and laid-back marquee.

Choose a suitable location: You’ll need to find a location that’s suitable for your marquee. Make sure the area is level and has adequate drainage. Check if there are any underground utilities or obstacles that could interfere with the marquee’s installation.

Determine the size of the marquee: Knowing how many guests you’re expecting will help you determine the size of the marquee you need. You’ll also need to consider other factors such as the furniture, staging, and dance floor that you’ll be using.

Plan for weather conditions: You should prepare for various weather conditions by renting heaters, fans, or air conditioning units depending on the time of year. Consider adding extra side panels to your marquee in case of rain or wind.

With careful planning and attention to detail, hiring a marquee can be a great way to create a memorable and unique event.

When considering how to to clean your marquee, can be a bit of a challenge, but it’s important to keep it clean and well-maintained to ensure its longevity and usability. General steps you can follow to clean your marquee include preparing a cleaning solution by mixing a mild cleaning solution in a bucket of warm water and using a mild detergent or a specialized tent cleaning solution. Avoid using harsh chemicals, bleach or abrasive cleaners as they can damage the material.

Once you have your cleaning solution, remove any loose debris by sweep the exterior of the marquee with a broom or use a soft-bristled brush to remove any loose dirt, leaves, or debris. Wet down the exterior of the marquee starting at the top and working your way down. This will help remove any remaining debris and prepare the surface for cleaning. Using a soft-bristled brush or a sponge, gently scrub the exterior of the marquee with the cleaning solution, paying attention to any areas with stains or mildew. Be careful not to apply too much pressure as this can damage the fabric. Rinse thoroughly with a hose to remove any soap residue.

Once you’ve finished cleaning, allow the marquee to air dry completely before storing it away. Once the marquee is completely dry, fold it carefully and store it in a cool, dry place. Avoid storing it in a damp or humid area as this can lead to mould growth. Regular cleaning and maintenance can help extend the life of your marquee and ensure that it’s always in good condition for your next event.

 

DIY Marquees | Marquee Hire Advice

How to clean your marquee

The obvious answer is whenever it needs it so maybe a better question would be how often should you expect to clean a marquee.

A marquee is far more likely to get dirty when being erected/dismantled rather than when it is actually up. If you’re careful when erecting and especially when dismantling the marquee then you can usually get away with a thorough clean only once or twice a season.

There are however a few exceptions:

The dirtiest marquee I have ever had was one that was erected under some trees. When it rained all of the dust and grime was washed off the leaves down on to our lovely marquee. If you’ve got to put a marquee up under trees expect to clean it immediately afterwards.

Rain-skirts by their very nature will always get muddy in the rain, these should be given a wipe over on pretty much every job.

Traffic-film – eventually PVC can have a grey layer build up which is especially difficult to remove. It takes a long time for this to happen (a year or two normally) but at this stage it needs a thorough clean using a chemical. The material also needs irritating (gone over with a brush or similar) to get this off. Once thoroughly cleaned the PVC should be as good as new.

Tree sap is a nightmare to remove.

There are also some things that will never come out:

Petrol/Diesel can stain PVC. This will never come out so avoid them at all costs.

Ingrained mould – this affects many marquees especially those that are stored when still wet. PVC is made of many layers, if a marquee is put away wet or if cheap PVC is used then water can get inside the layers and create mould which will never come out. Incidentally this is one of the reasons we use better quality 500gsm PVC than available elsewhere, it takes far longer for the layers to break down in better quality PVC.

4m x 6m Green PVC Marquee

Some garden chemicals can stain – I was shown a marquee recently that had green stains around the rain skirt which seemed to have come from a chemical added to the lawn.

Better quality PVC always helps, we use a lacquer coated PVC as it is easier to clean and lasts longer than the cheap alternatives. Contact us for more Marquee hire advice 

DIY Marquees Raising Marquees to New Heights

DIY Marquees make things simple for marquee business owners, with useful, practical marquee accessories and amazing marquee lighting packages simplicity is key, simply connect the leads together plug in to the house/extension lead and you’re done. If your customer needs another power supply, then an additional extension lead would usually do the job.

This simple system is perfect when you’re starting up a marquee hire business but after a while the jobs will become more intricate and so do the electrics. At this point you need to consider attending training courses from our friends at Essential Supplies who are running electrical courses aimed at the marquee hire industry:

Event Lighting Course:

Our one day workshop is specifically aimed at those working within the events industry. We shall cover methods and types of lighting and how to install your system. This is a non examined course and provides no formal qualification; it is de-signed to help candidates with lighting. Candidates will receive a certificate of attendance upon completion.

Price: £180 + VAT per candidate

Marquee flooring packages are designed to be easy to lay whilst giving one of the best finishes available in a marquee using new carpet, available in red, green or honeybeige.

Included in each package is a non-breathable underlay, this is placed underneath the carpet when laying to prevent the build-up of condensation during your event (grass gives off a lot of water vapour if not covered). Grass is very tough so covering for a week or so will not generally cause any harm.

The marquee flooring is simply nailed in place -hammer, nails, cutting knife and a tool belt are included in the package. Watch our marquee flooring video to see how easy it is to lay.

This is the flooring and method of laying used by most of the marquee hire industry.

Have a party this Christmas

How to erect a marquee on hard standing?

The easiest way to erect a marquee is on grass using a tie down kit to hold it in place but sometimes a marquee has to go up on hard surfaces. With our DIY Marquees heavy duty marquees for sale (and indeed most quality marquees) this isn’t a problem as long as you fit groundbars. Groundbars don’t hold the marquee down but they do make it more rigid – imagine the marquee as a box, securing the bottom line makes it a much stronger and more rigid box.

When erecting a marquee on hard standing:

Look around the site, if the marquee is to be erected on a patio often there are flower beds or other soft surfaces to gain anchoring points from and just use longer tie downs.

Assuming there is no existing anchoring point the remaining options are heavy weights or drilling in to the ground.

Drilling is usually only an option on car parks or old tennis courts (be sure to fill the holes afterwards with an appropriate filler).

Concrete blocks or sand bags can be used as weights but my preference is water butts. These are light to carry round but you only fill them up once they are strapped to the marquee (this does rely on having a hosepipe on site).

When using weights strap them directly to the marquee, having them a distance away just gives the weight room to drag slightly and then it’s lost most of its use.

Click here for many other marquees and Party tents for sale

DIY Marquees reaching new heights

Thank you to everyone who visited us at The Showmans Show last week. For those that didn’t make it we displayed one of our new pop-up marquee for sale including linings, we also had a new pagoda style marquee that will be a standard stock item next year. We’re confident both will prove popular and really add something to the marquee hire industry.

The Show itself was again very quiet, personally I think a change to Fri/Sat would really help increase visitors. I know ourselves and many other suppliers will be monitoring the leads generated carefully as it’s becoming increasingly difficult to justify the large expenses incurred. Two lined marquees with chandeliers and honeybeige carpet   Two marquees set up as a beer hall (full)   Two 6x12m DIY Marquees side by side

As an erector of smaller marquees it is always a joy to see what can be achieved in larger structures, some of the two story marquees are very very impressive. Saying that I wouldn’t like to put them up!

Thanks for reading.