Tent Conference 2020: Worth it!

December 1st, 2019

Can you afford not to attend Tent Conference 2020? The best reason I can give you to attend Tent Conference 2020 in January comes courtesy of an awning fabricator.  At IFAI Expo 2019 in Orlando, Fla., I had the pleasure of sitting in on an educational session on graphics for the small- to medium-sized awning […]

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Innovators and instructors

August 1st, 2019

The bad news (and some good news) about career paths and aging. It was on the eve of my birthday, while sitting in rush hour traffic, that an NPR segment gave me the really bad news: My professional decline has already started. The interviewee, social scientist Arthur C. Brooks, was discussing his personal research project, […]

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Cosmic wedding trends

June 1st, 2019

As space tourism becomes a reality, the wedding industry won’t be far behind.  I’m going on record with an out-of-this-world prediction: The cover photo of the June 2035 issue of InTents will show a tented wedding on Mars.  Let me explain.  I’ve had two topics floating around my head recently: tented weddings and space exploration. […]

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The memory business

April 1st, 2019

Ideas and inspiration from Tent Expo 2019 Sunny Orlando, Fla., and cozy flannel shirts don’t seem like they go together. But that’s how Tent Rental Division (TRD) Steering Committee members and IFAI staffers honored our friend Tom Markel, who passed away in December (see page 10). Tom and his flannel shirts and baseball caps were […]

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Gadgets and widgets and thingamabobs

December 1st, 2018

Tell InTents about the inventory, tools and services your business depends on. I love to cook, but I’m not a fan of most kitchen gadgets. If I’m going to make room in my kitchen for a new tool, it has to serve multiple purposes, not take up too much space and help me perform tasks […]

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Cheers to women

October 1st, 2018

The tent and event industry may be male dominated, but it offers exceptional opportunities for women to succeed. The wedding industry tends to garner a lot of negative headlines and jokes. (Bridezillas! Ugly bridesmaid dresses! Cheesy wedding songs!) But in a recent column in the Washington Post, essayist Gretchen Comcowich summed up one of the […]

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Not a TRD member? Read this!

August 1st, 2018

Why you should stop subscribing to InTents and join TRD. If you are a member of IFAI’s Tent Rental Division (TRD), you have my permission to turn the page and dive into the rest of this issue. If you own or work for a tent rental company that subscribes to InTents but isn’t a TRD […]

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Life in the slow lane

June 1st, 2018

Amid controversies, quitting social media may sound nice, but is it realistic? Sometimes I feel like I’m driving my 2008 Subaru Forester in the slow vehicle lane and the rest of the world is zooming by me in a sports car. This is especially true when managing the deadlines and required lead-time of a bimonthly […]

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