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A spicy gumbo cook-off fundraiser for a Kalamazoo, Mich., day shelter has grown every year, but the event’s success led to tenting challenges at the host site, Louie’s Trophy House Grill. In its fourth year, the event needed more space than a past tent rental company could provide.
The clients wanted the tents to function as an extension of the restaurant, with guests moving from the restaurant onto a tented patio and into a larger event tent staked in the parking lot. The challenge involved building a tent over the 20-by-25-foot patio with a nonremovable 6-foot gate on two sides.
“This is one of the biggest reasons we got the job,” says Rentalex event coordinator Sarah Larsen. “We needed to build the tent to the side and lift it over the gate. We then had to attach a 40-by-80-foot tent to the 20-by-30-foot tent and gutter it so it was one continuous tent from the back door of the restaurant.”
In addition, Rentalex was able to address one of the clients’ biggest concerns: keeping guests warm at a time of the year when snow is still on the ground.
“In years past, heat issues had kept guests out of the tent,” says Larsen. “We brought in three large indirect heaters to circulate the air. People were sitting out there in T-shirts.”
There was freezing drizzle during setup, but this only posed a problem for the canopy tops, as they had to be kept on a truck with a heater during frame setup so they would stretch easily. Rentalex had just purchased the 40-by-80-foot Navi-Track®, so Jason O’Neil from Anchor Industries Inc., Evansville, Ind., was on hand to help installers.
In addition, Rentalex was able to address one of the clients’ biggest concerns: keeping guests warm at a time of the year when snow is still on the ground.
In retrospect, Larsen says it would have been preferable to have an entrance into the tent in addition to the one through the restaurant. The clients were happy and Rentalex received many positive comments for several weeks afterward.
“It was a widely attended event so we got to showcase our brand new tent and actually booked it out for another event based on the setup,” Larsen says.