Recession impacts U.S. Midwest tent industry

InTents | August 2009

The recession and high unemployment mean that in the U.S. Midwest, there is a good-sized pool of potential employees, but that doesn’t ensure that tent rental companies can find people with the skills they need.

“Unfortunately, in Michigan right now we have a large pool of applicants to choose from, although most are not trained in our business,” says Sarah Larsen of Rentalex in Kalamazoo. “We have brought back almost the same crew we had last summer with only one to two new additions that were recommended to us.” To retain the delivery and setup crew members, Rentalex pays them an additional dollar for every hour worked if they stay through the entire season.

Tom Wodetzki of American Pavilion in Danville, Ill., tells a similar story.

“The county in which American Pavilion is located has the second highest unemployment in the state of Illinois,” he says. “While I can find general labor without a problem, people to lead installation crews still remain difficult to find.”

Larsen notes that corporate events are down but backyard weddings are booming, and a “natural” look has been a common theme with weddings this year.

While based in the Midwest, American Pavilion provides tent rental and event services nationwide, primarily for corporate and sporting events. Wodetzki notes a trend of corporate event planners waiting longer to place their orders.

“I believe that due to the uncertainty of how many people will attend a particular event, planners are waiting until they have a firm count on the number of attendees before they are willing to commit to a tent size and overall budget,” he says.

“The other trend that I am seeing is that weaker competitors are falling to the wayside or going out of business completely,” he adds. “I think this will continue until the economy moves out of this recession.”

The ever-changing weather in the Midwest is always a concern, requiring constant monitoring and, in the case of storms, extra trips to sites to ensure that stakes and ratchets have held, Larsen says.

“We also have a long winter, in which people will still need tents,” she says. “These we have to monitor even more closely as many do not carry snow loads. We must keep the tents heated and go push snow off in the winter months and make sure staking is still secure.”

Comments

Comments are the opinion of individual posters and do not reflect the views of InTents or Industrial Fabrics Association International.

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  Adam Wagner

  Jul 17, 2010
  9:55 pm CDT

  Impact of Recession on Tent Industry in North East

  The recession has had a similar impact on the tent and event industry in the North East, which has been experiencing a shortage of skilled labor despite a large pool of available candidates.  At Ace Canvas & Tent, we have also been noticing that event planners are waiting on the number of attendees prior to committing to tent size or budget, and that weaker competitors are going out of business.  Sadly, we have already been approached by several smaller tent rental companies on Long Island with offers to purchase their entire inventory.

  However, overall the effects of the current recession on the tent industry in the North East has been rather mild.  Ace Canvas & Tent has been offering tent rental services in this region for over 50 years, and in retrospect, the current situation is in no way comparable to the recession that accompanied the oil crisis in the 70s.  Actually, although event planners are taking slightly longer to book, on averate teh number of customers we are servicing this year is up slightly from previous years.  Despite a temporary lull in business activity last winter during the off-peak season, so far this year we have had no shortage of requests for party rentals, tent rentals, tent sales or manufacturing of tent related products such as tent-tops and sidewall.  However, tent rentals which used to roughly constitute 90% of our business has dropped to 70%, while manufacturign of custom tents has trebled from 10% of our gross revenue to 30%.

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  Rob Duling

  Jul 2, 2011
  4:50 pm CDT

  great lakes imppact

  With warmer weather in the most recent years, more and more people have been having outdoor weddings.