5 Tips to Help You Plan Your Company Event
Planning a company marquee event doesn’t have to be hard work when you take some of our top 5 tips on board in your preparation. Admittedly, corporate events tend to be bigger in scale and moving parts than your back yard barbeque, but with a little prep work and consultation with events hire supplier(s) you can use these tips to get everything running smoothly. So whether you’ve been tasked as a corporate event planner, an event sponsor or your in procurement this article should help. So without further ado lets dive in to the top things you might want to consider when planning your corporate event in a marquee.
Know Your Facilities
Planning a company event in a marquee is a great way to bring an event onsite or closer to the action so to speak. We recently had the pleasure of doing an event for a tennis club in aid of a charity where the marquee was positioned right behind the tennis playing surface with room for over 100 guests. Marquees are so flexible and extensible that they really can fill a gap when other options are less suitable.
From the facilities side, its important to think about lighting, both in and around the marquee and also options for heating the tent. For indoor lighting you could think about a rustic party look with festoon lighting on the walls and across the tent roof bars. You could also go with internal chandeliers and LED uplighter options to add more style, particularly after dark. Apart from the lights, you’ll likely need a heater, usually an indirect heater (Arcotherm EC55) like the one below, with it’s own diesel supply which should last 12 hours before refueling. Having thought about heating and lighting, you might also want to talk about flooring and loo facilities. From the floor perspective, wooden slat fooring, hardened rubber interlocking pieces and carpets are all options to think about in terms of the look and feel you want. For loo facilities, if there’s no easy access to fixed facilities, you could get one of the luxury loo options which came pretty close to many hotel bathroom standards,
Thinking About Electrics
To turn the lights on for all your appliances is going to require something a little bigger than the small generators you see beside mobile chip vans. We used a mobile 45KvA Generator like this one recently, which comes with 2 x 16amp (220v) plugins and 2 x 400v plugins. More than enough for DJ gear, Burco Boilers, the marquee heater and the rest. Of course, it’s worth mentioning, that working with heavy electrical equipment and power feeds should be done by experienced personnel, particularly as this type of generator uses non-standard outlets. (Straight pin). Usually the supplier will offer power distribution within the tent so Festoons, chandeliers etc are all lit up.
Getting Refreshments Sorted
Keeping everyone happy and hydrated is a good opportunity to win more friends and influence. It’s good to know where you stand in numbers and percentage of male v female guests when it comes to alcoholic refreshments. With men tending to steer more toward been then women as an example. When keeping things cold, we found styrofoam box containers (with lids) filled with ice, particulary good at keeping things cool for an extended period. You could also think about coffee/ tea dispensers, burco boilers, water cooler dispensers, bottle openers, cups, saucers, plates and biscuits etc. When planning stock levels, it’s important to think of the length of the event as discreet things like number of tea-bags, sugar and milk supply become important.
Eye on Finances
Keeping everything in budget is probably an obvious item. But just like building a house it’s good to add 20% or so overage in your estimates. Some expenses might not be known until the event has wrapped up, such as the cost of waste disposal (number of bags), amount of Diesel consumed by generators, heaters and lighting towers and perhaps last minute extra support staff and breakages. It’s also good to onboard direct suppliers into your accounting systems (e.g. Sage, Zero) with all their account details early on to keep the supply chain wheels greased. It’s also good to agree payment terms EFT vs Credit Card. Credit card transactions usually come with a 2.5% transaction fee which may need to be factored on the supplier side.
Extras and Food
So on to our last item, extras, Usually you’ll want music of some sort, perhaps you’ll want mics, even live TV or WiFi hot spots. It’s good to ask questions of your supplier(s), can they provide support personnel to help with setup and be on standby during the event when there’s sound problems or networking issues. On the food side, it’s good to know about any special food requirements for guests, and perhaps if guests will be arriving throughout the day for food. i.e. caterers may need to leave food available on heated buffet trays as self-service after the caterers have left.
Summary
Planning your company event in a marquee is very do-able and offers a lot of advantages in terms of handling numbers in one space and even cost savings per person. When picking a supplier, it’s good to work with someone who can speak to the tips above and work out the details with you at a fine-tune level and offer you support on the day. If you’d like to discuss your event needs with us, call us at Events Hire and we’ll be happy to help.
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