Gary
Welcome to the seventh installment of the ‘ultimate guide to hiring a marquee’ – in this edition we’ll focus of marquee furniture. At Lifestyle marquees we focus on quality and customer service and when we provide quotes and estimates we include the cost of furniture hire too.
Take care when comparing marquee hire quotations as many other marquee companies leave furniture hire and other elements out of their initial quotes in order to ensure that their price looks competitive; this can mean that their clients will need to pay extra to add the furniture at a later date – but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If your marquee company doesn’t organise the furniture for you then they are unlikely to coordinate it’s deliver and make sure that everything is set out as it should be… we’ll revisit this later in the blog.
What furniture should I have?
The furniture requirements for every event are very different. A formal wedding will most likely require round tables of ten and a head table. Although long tables, placed end to end to create a social, banquet style occasion, have seen a recent revival.
For less formal events such as parties, casual furniture is usually the way to go. A mixture of high and low furniture such as poseur tables, cube seats, sofa sets and coffee tables work well at parties. They are also great for creating ‘chill out’ areas at formal events.
Did you know?
Layouts using long tables for dining generally require 10% more space compared to layouts using round tables.
How and when is furniture delivered?
If you organise your furniture hire via Lifestyle marquees then delivery and installation will be coordinated in accordance with the marquee build. This ensures that furniture is delivered to the correct areas and stored safely inside the marquee – The last thing you want is furniture left outside at the mercy of the elements…
Who lays out the furniture?
Most furniture hire companies deliver to the marquee but will not go so far as to actually lay out the furniture. The same approach is taken by the majority of marquee suppliers whose quotes usually cover the cost of hiring 
the marquee structure but little more.
Lifestyle marquees’s policy is to manage quality as well as coordinate deliveries with all third party suppliers and (unless instructed otherwise) lay out the furniture too.
This includes time consuming jobs such as attaching seat pads to each of the chairs before stacking them within the marquee, ready for the caters to deploy once the dining tables have been laid up.
Summary
The simplest and easiest way to arrange furniture hire for your marquee event is via your marquee supplier – but make sure that they include this in their initial quotation to you so that there are no nasty surprises when the bill arrives. Make sure that your marquee supplier is willing to take responsibility for coordinating the delivery of the furniture too – you won’t want to need to take time off of work in order to be there to do this yourself.
Remember, although Lifestyle marquees will lay out tables and casual furniture such as sofas and poseur tables this is not the standard policy for most marquee suppliers. Check with your supplier before signing on the dotted line.
There are lots and lots of furniture options, layouts and styles – your marquee company is likely to have seen and done it all before, so ask their advice as to what works best! It is likely that they will have lots of photos that they can share with you too, giving you a chance to see a range of options in situ in order to help you visualise the layout and style for your event.
Did you enjoy the ‘Ultimate Guide to Marquee Furniture’?
Read the rest in the series here:
- Part One: How to hire a Frame tent
- Part two: Pole tents
- Part Three: Pagoda & Stretch Tent Marquees
- Part Four: Choosing your marquee site
- Part Five: Extra space – Reception & Chill out areas
- Part six: Marquee Floristry
