TEXTILES.ORG
and courtesy of All About Events.
Award-winning All About Events fashions high-end weddings in California’s Central Coast wine country.
Before Paso Robles, Calif.-based All About Events Inc. was All About Events Inc., it was Party Partners Rental. Steven Herring launched the company in 2008 as a side business to stay busy on the weekends. He started small—initially purchasing an assortment of tables and chairs and an enclosed trailer. The first time he put up a structure for shade, he recognized the importance of quality tent structures. “When I first started, I honestly bought a 10-by-20-foot carport cover and put it up in the backyard of a house,” Herring says. “The second we took it down it went straight into the trash can. I started researching tent manufacturers and slowly started to get more into tenting. The more research and training I did, the more interested and comfortable I got with tenting.”
From weddings to festivals
Now, All About Events is a full-service wedding and event rental company with locations in Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo, Calif. The company won “Best All Around Wedding Vendor” for the Central Coast in 2016 from “California Wedding Day” magazine and in 2017 won “Best All Around Wedding Vendor” as well as “Best Event Rental Company” in San Luis Obispo County. “Weddings are our bread and butter and we truly love them,” Herring says. “We are very focused on high-end weddings on the Central Coast.”
One recent addition to All About Events’ high-end wedding offerings are its “Mobile Man Caves”—luxury mobile groomsmen suites for wedding locations that lack a comfortable place onsite for groomsmen to get ready for the ceremony. Each suite includes running water, AC/heating, kitchen, leather seating, flat screen TVs and a back deck area where groomsmen can enjoy the fresh air. “Mobile She Shacks are coming soon,” Herring says.
The company also provides tenting for approximately 15 festivals each year, including the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest, SLO Wine Country’s Harvest on the Coast and Whale Rock’s Music & Arts Festival. “I like supplying tents and inventory to these events because I enjoy attending the festivals,” Herring says. “And I enjoy working out trades,” he jokes.
For tented event providers, the Central Coast region of California can be ideal, with its temperate climate. But at times, the wind can provide real challenges. “This season, the winds made us really work for our money,” Herring says. “We were doing a three-day install for a festival in a huge open field located between two very large hills. Like clockwork, at 2:30 (p.m.) every day the wind would pick up to between 30 and 40 mph. There was even a Gale Force warning in place the day before the event. The conditions obviously required a lot of extra staking, and we took a lot of preventative measures to ensure the safety of our crew and festival attendees.”
Community support
All About Events is involved in several nonprofit events each year, including must! charities (a local organization dedicated
to combating poverty and improving quality of life in San Luis Obispo’s North Country), Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and the cancer support community.
Herring says the recent acquisitions in the U.S. tent rental market have not directly impacted his company but that ultimately they are a good thing for the industry. “I truly believe competition is good and makes everyone step up their game,” he says. “There are a lot of good event rental companies around and that is good for me because it keeps me on my toes. If our work is ‘good enough’ then there’s plenty of room to make it ‘great.’ And that is our goal—to be known as a great company.”