Despite his company’s decades in the industry and his employees’ collective tenting experience, Ed Knight, president of EventQuip, Montgomeryville, Pa., leaves nothing to chance when it comes to installs. Rather than assuming everything will proceed smoothly, Knight and his team focus on all that could go sideways.
The process kicks off with the client meeting, where one of five project managers reviews the objectives, identifying the client’s wants and needs and developing a plan to address them. Before it’s sent to the client, the plan undergoes a five-person operational review involving the general, scheduling and inventory managers, along with the project manager and Knight. Most times this suffices, but in other cases, a more formal meeting is required.
“When we have this meeting, we look at it with what I call a premortem approach,” Knight says. “We consider what could go wrong before, during and after the event. All aspects of the installation, teardown and event itself are addressed operationally. Sometimes we look at something in the plan and change it. By the end of this process, we have bulletproofed the event.”
It sounds like a lengthy process but these meetings generally only run 15–60 minutes, with clients typically receiving proposals within 48 hours. This isn’t a one-and-done effort; additional meetings can be called if event requirements or circumstances warrant.
Remaining weather wise
Knight embraces the mantra “If it goes wrong in the end, it probably wasn’t right in the beginning.” Even so, he agrees that monkey wrenches such as bad weather can thwart even the best-laid plans, as was the case with a recent gala held by the Philadelphia chapter of Wedding Industry Professionals Association this March.
EventQuip carries inventory for special events, commercial and industrial uses, including structures, frame and pole tents, flooring, climate control and power solutions. It has nine installation crews of five installers each, doing about 700 projects of varying sizes annually. Primarily serving the greater Philadelphia area, the weather can at times be unpredictable.
For the aforementioned event, which required a three-day setup, EventQuip provided a 20-by-30-meter Losberger Levo structure along with four supporting tents of varying sizes. However, as it got closer to the install date, the area saw an “unprecedented” amount of rain and snow, Knight says, raising the potential the flat site would become extremely muddy.
“So we called another meeting several days before, this time with crew leads, to look at what we would need to bring out so as not to cause any damage to the site—basically having another premortem,” he says. “In doing this, we find we don’t have to triage later.”
Every outdoor event carries with it the risk that the weather could be severe or even deadly, making it essential that tent/event rental companies stay on top of whatever Mother Nature is sending their way.
In the Canadian province of Manitoba, wind is a huge concern, says Shonah Rathwell, general manager for Pinnacle Event Rentals. The full-service rental company provides structures, tents, tabletop solutions and decor for small and large-scale events. Peak season sees the company running three to four crews on any given day, comprised of four to five team members each.
“[It’s] the biggest challenge for us,” she says. “Because we’re situated in the prairies, shelter from trees can be limited, and plough winds are a very real fear. Intense summer thunderstorms with heavy downpours can also cause disruptions, but we have counteracted these concerns by adding stake bars as mandatory on all of our pole tents.”
Like Knight, Rathwell monitors weather through a variety of apps. Both use the iPhone weather app. Knight also likes WeatherBug® and Weather Underground®, while Rathwell checks The Weather Network® and Windy, among others.
According to Kevin Mahoney, certified consulting meteorologist and Risk Communicator team lead for DTN, the issue for most rental operators isn’t necessarily being caught off guard by weather. Instead, the bigger problem is the sheer volume of weather information flying at them from multiple directions.
“Between media coverage, government forecasts, free phone apps and paid services, there’s no shortage of data,” he explains. “The issue often comes down to differences in data quality or how the information is communicated. Too many signals can make it harder to decide what to trust—a classic paralysis by analysis.”
A global data and technology company that equips operational leaders in weather-driven industries, DTN operates 24/7 global weather centers in Minnesota, the Netherlands, Australia and the Philippines. The company was founded in 1984, initially serving the agricultural industry.
The company recently launched its DTN Weather Hub for Outdoor Safety platform, designed to help identify weather-driven risks across venues, event spaces and response zones. This tool provides a centralized, real-time perspective through features/applications such as location-specific weather intelligence; interactive event and incident visualization; threshold-based alerting; and peril-specific monitoring. Optional add-ons include the Risk Communicator, which provides live access to expert meteorologist consultants.
Clearly, extreme weather events such as hurricanes, tornados, heavy rain and thunderstorms are important to monitor since these can introduce a host of problems for tented events. Even so, Mahoney describes wind as the “most critical” threat, particularly during setup.
“Tents will carry engineering specs and wind ratings, which during installation are often the lowest,” he says, adding that safety-wise, the setup is when structures are at their most vulnerable. “When working with large surface areas that can act like sails, even light to moderate winds can make for a dangerous situation.”
Strategies and action plans
For Moss Duvall, owner of Pelican Tents & Events, weather can significantly influence their schedule; they never move forward with a setup if conditions are unsafe. Located in Shreveport, La., the full-service rental company provides tents, structures, tables and chairs, flooring, bars, lighting and more, serving all types of clients. During its busy season, the company handles 70−150 events weekly, running between five and seven crews, with sizes ranging from three to 16 depending on the job.
Pelican prioritizes comprehensive checklists and thorough site visits, which start when an order is placed. Depending on project size and complexity, multiple site visits might be conducted. They also meet “well in advance” with wedding and event coordinators, assisting them in visualizing the layout and the items needed.
Leads tasked with managing different aspects of each project are assigned. They’re also responsible for verifying that all necessary inventory makes it to and from the install, walking the site to confirm nothing has been left behind.
“The lead is also required to take multiple photos of the completed installation and post them to our company WhatsApp group,” Duvall says. “This provides documentation that the job was performed correctly and that the jobsite was left clean. Additionally, these photos allow our sales staff to verify the customer received every item they ordered.”
Their jobsite essentials include TentOX
systems, drop cloths, tape measures, ladders, keder feeders, pull ropes, spray paint and first-aid kits. Stakes or Block and Roll® concrete blocks are used for anchoring/ballasting.
Pinnacle’s field leadership team meets weekly to review the schedule, packing lists and job and safety requirements, says Rathwell, explaining this allows them to identify additional issues that need addressing. Guided by packing lists, the warehouse team preps and loads everything necessary for an install, using these same lists to ensure all is returned in good working order. That team also creates a monthly checklist for tool inspections.
“We build in redundancies such as bringing extra rachets in case we have fraying; bringing extra pins for our structure tents because we know we will lose some; and marking paint to ensure we’re squared properly,” she says. “We do have a tent box that gets sent to each installation that has common replacement and repair items such as pinhole paint, marking paint, extra flanges, carabiners, mallets and so on.”
Team members are trained in tool and ladder safety and are provided with personal protective equipment, or PPE, which they must have on hand every day. Along with conducting a complete vehicle pre-trip inspection, field supervisors also do a PPE check.
EventQuip provides PPE to new employees on their first day. If they show up to a job without it, they’re sent home, says Knight. Ladder safety, learning how to roll up cables and how to unstrap a truck are also part of their initiation. The tool and equipment checklist becomes part of the load list, which is checked by one of the warehouse crew (and checked again by a different person).
“An order is pulled and staged and put in a particular area for that job in our parking lot,” says Knight. “Everything is counted when staged and counted again when loaded.”
This doesn’t mean they don’t occasionally come up short, he adds, recalling when a fire marshal visited a site, telling them another exit sign and fire extinguisher were needed. The company took a somewhat unusual approach.
“The event was going to start in a couple of hours, so we used an Uber to ferry these things out,” says Knight. “We very likely would have done this no matter the timing because these were such small items. We don’t have to pay for the driver to come back, and it’s less expensive than taking someone from the warehouse. We’ve been doing this since 2015, and it has worked really well for us.”
Illustrating the point that a willingness to think outside the (tool) box can also prove essential for installation preparedness.
Pamela Mills-Senn is a freelance writer based in Seal Beach, Calif.
The post Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst appeared first on InTents.
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