Circular tent layout designed out of shapes

Toronto rental company designs circular tent layout around gazebo.

They say you can’t fit a square peg into a round hole. But don’t try to tell that to the creative minds at Absolute Tent & Event Services of Toronto, Ont., Canada. The company designed a round configuration out of various hexagonal, triangular and square tents, to the delight of clients hosting an August 2011 wedding at the Westriver Banquet Centre in Vaughan, Ont.

“We welcome challenges that involve a variety of tenting solutions being used together to provide optimum and sometimes dramatic outcomes for our clients,” says Paul Kenyon, Absolute Tent & Event managing director.

The client’s main request was that tents be configured so that as many guests as possible would have a clear line of site to the permanent gazebo in the center, says Absolute event account manager Michelle Nicol. “We spent hours on the planning stage, involving CAD drawings, site inspections, conversations with the venue/groundskeeper and scans with the city.”

To achieve the desired arrangement, Absolute installed two 34-by-40-foot hexagonal tents, four 20-by-20-foot tensile tents and two 20-by-20-by-20-foot triangular tents. The six-hour installation, which required six installers plus a crew chief, involved staking holes, lining up the tents and guttering them together. The crew’s primary challenge during the installation was light posts and trees.

“We originally were planning on removing the light posts, but days before the install found out that was no longer an option, so we worked around them,” Nicol says.

The client found Absolute, a 15-year-old party and event rental supplier that serves the greater Toronto area, through a web search. In addition to this installation, the company worked with the client at a private residence for another event related to the same wedding. Nicol says that both the client and the company were thrilled with the outcome.

“This has further confirmed our idea that anything is possible in the tenting world,” Nicol says. “We love the challenge, and are dedicated from the moment it is proposed to us to make it the best install.”