Bespoke party marquees for hire with unique styling for every event

How to choose a marquee hire company

When planning an event that requires a marquee, understanding how to choose the perfect marquee hire company can often be intimidating and out right confusing. With so much choice, narrowing down to one who fits your needs can be a challenge. After all you want to make sure that whoever you choose for your big event is not going to let you down.

To help you find and select the perfect marquee partner for your wedding, party or celebration, we’ve put together a handy list of things to research to make the hiring process plain sailing.

1.  What’s their experience and track record?

First, you want to make sure the marquee hire company has the right kind of experience. Have they worked on events of a similar size? With a similar budget? And with a similar brief? Is there anything unusual or unique about what you want they’ll need to deal with?  For example, a challenging site with limited access or across multiple levels or locations. How have they dealt with similar issues in the past?

Now’s the time to also find out if they’re used to working with local venues and suppliers such as caterers, event planners and florists.  If so, what’s their approach to this? Your event is likely to include a range of different people and businesses, so being able to work smoothly and efficiently with them all is crucial.

A professional hire company with experience on their side, will be more than happy to talk you through how they work, suggest ideas and provide examples of recent events.

Speaking of examples, browsing their portfolios and social media channels is also a good idea to help get a flavour of what they’ve done and if they’re a good fit for your event. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, don’t be afraid to get in touch with specific questions, or to request a quote.

Please feel free to browse events with marquees supplied by Marquees and Pavilions here:

Instagram

Pinterest

Portfolio

Gallery

Once you’ve finished this initial research, you should be left with a short list of potential marquee hire companies to further whittle down.

2.  Do customers leave glowing reviews?

The next step is to check out reviews from past customers. Customer feedback is an incredibly useful way to find out first hand whether past experiences have been good or bad.

Testimonials on the website are a good start. But we recommend this is backed up with further reading of reviews on third party sites.  Checking out reviews left on their Facebook page gives a good insight into satisfaction with service, as do customer comments on posts. Look at how quickly are these comments are responded to and is it done professionally and efficiently?  Reviews on Google are another good source of insight into service. As are review platforms such as TrustPilot.

If you’d like to see reviews left for Marquees and Pavilions please feel free to browse these here:

Facebook 

Hitched.com

3.  Are they MUTA members?

After checking reviews look for membership of MUTA. MUTA is the UK’s only trade association dedicated to raising standards of practice in the provision of marquees, tents and structures.

Holding MUTA membership signifies that the company you’re choosing to work with is committed to upholding standards of service and workmanship. A guarantee that they’ll adhere to best practice and specific codes of conduct which require them to be legal, decent, honest and truthful

MUTA members take pride in providing faultless service and display the ‘MUTA accredited hirer member’ logo prominently on their website. You can also search for an accredited hirer near you by using the ‘find a member’ tool on the MUTA website.

Once you’ve clarified they are a MUTA member, reviews are favourable and their portfolio is ticking all your boxes, you need to understand what’s included in the hire package.

4.  What’s included in the price?

There’s nothing worse than hiring a marquee, only to find out all they’re providing you with is a roof for your event. You might think ‘but isn’t that what a marquee is?’, and yes, technically that’s correct.

But your dream marquee is much more than just the frame and cover. There’s the lining, flooring, lighting, tables and chairs. Not to mention dance floor, bar and catering area. As well as essentials such as heating, electrical generators and loos.

When looking for a marquee hire company, it’s important to find one that provides all these essential extras – a one-stop-shop.  So, make sure you find out exactly what’s covered by your quote, paying close attention to any small print.

To help our customers understand what’s covered by our prices, we’ve created a few standard hire packages.

Our classic wedding marquee hire package

Our clear roof marquee hire package

5.  Can you customise?

While you may opt for a standard package – you might want something a bit more bespoke to create the ‘WOW factor’. A marquee that will have your guests catching their breath in amazement when they arrive. If that’s the case, you’ll need to check your hire company is up to the challenge.

Alongside standard marquee packages, explore with your potential hire company what options there are for customising your event. You’ll find that dance floors can be white, black, mirrored or star lit. Chandeliers can hang elegantly over bar areas. Trestle tables and benches can be supplied for a relaxed and vintage feel. Alongside many other options for flooring, seating, bar areas and linings.

A good marquee hire company will welcome your ideas and come up with suggestions of their own for creating a one-off event that exceeds your dreams and aspirations.

6.  On-site support and coping with problems.

Like with anything in life hurdles can arise. Staff become sick, machinery breaks down, equipment fails to turn up. This is where the knowledge and experience of your chosen company can really come into its own. A good marquee hire business will solve these problems behind the scenes without the client even becoming aware. They come prepared with contingency plans and a phone full of contacts to help solve any problems that arise.

Before signing on the dotted line, make sure you ask your chosen companies questions about their contingency plans and on-site support in case anything goes wrong.

7.  Next steps.

If Marquees and Pavilions has made it onto your shortlist of chosen marquee hire companies, the next thing is to give us a call.

During our chat we’d love to hear about your event. You’re also more than welcome to ask any questions about our marquee hire service and packages. Following our call, we’ll put together some initial ideas for you.

Then we like to meet with you at your chosen venue to further develop your brief and make a plan of the site. From this we develop our quote.

Once you’ve booked a marquee we understand that changes can happen to the specification. We work with you to accommodate new ideas or changes to guest numbers.

Please send us an enquiry or contact us on:

Tel: 01844 208371

Email: info@marpav.co.uk