{"id":10571,"date":"2025-11-20T10:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T10:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/?p=10571"},"modified":"2025-11-20T10:19:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T10:19:13","slug":"marquee-advice-marquee-electrics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/marquee-advice-marquee-electrics\/","title":{"rendered":"Marquee advice: Marquee electrics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Marquee equipment generally doesn\u2019t take much power, but as the marquee contractor you generally take responsibility for supplying power to the Band\/DJ, the caterers and anything else the customer may need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Get your customers power requirements clarified in advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ask them -do they need you to supply power for the DJ? If so please ask him\/her how much power they require. -do they need you to supply power for the caterers? Find out how much they need. Do they need power to the Bar?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Quite often they simply won\u2019t know. A DJ will say \u2018oh I just need two sockets\u2019. It could mean he\/she needs two 3kw leads, or the most likely answer is one 3kw lead is fine as long as it\u2019s got at least two sockets on the end. Caterers will use the most power. One tea urn is 3kw (they often have 2 or 3) plus cookers, plus hot cupboards. Maybe they should watch the celebrity masterchef episode when they\u2019re cooking in the jungle! Anyway, chances are the caterers will need 6-15kw of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s three options we used when supplying power to a marquee:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>1. The easiest method is to use extension leads. We used blue arctic cable connected together using 16 amp plugs (places like Essential Supplies sell these made up)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>When plugging these in to a house always use an RCD plug even if the house is covered on an RCD anyway -an RCD will trip the power if there is a fault (someone accidentally cutting a cable for example).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>1.5mm cable is okay for short runs (up to 15m say) but 2.5mm should be used for longer runs to avoid voltage drop.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One cable can supply up to 3kw.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you run two or three cables have them plugging in to different parts of the house so they\u2019re on different circuits (if more than three leads were required we\u2019d use an electrician or generator)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>2. Pay an electrician to take a large power supply out to the marquee. We used this a lot but since then Part P has been introduced. This means before installing a temporary supply an electrician must test the whole houses\u2019 electrics to ensure it is suitable. This will get so expensive it\u2019s simply not economic compared to hiring in a generator. If you do go down this route make sure:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The electrician is reliable and tidy \u2013 his work and attitude will reflect directly on you.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There is a fixed cost, you will pass this on to the customer but estimates that escalate leave a bad taste in the mouth for everyone<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Make sure the customer is going to be in when the electrician arrives. You can put a marquee up while a customer\u2019s out but you can\u2019t connect the electrics.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>3. Hire in a generator. It\u2019s good to build up a relationship with at least one generator supplier -all generators are not the same:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Make sure you hire a \u2018supersilent\u2019 one, these are the quietest (to my knowledge).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Make sure the cost includes cabling, distribution board and spare fuel (these are all usually extras)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Make sure the spare fuel isn\u2019t left by the exhaust of the generator. Sounds common sense doesn\u2019t it? Apparently not for one of our jobs -I found the plastic cannister melted down on one side with diesel spilling on to the ground. I assume it\u2019s only because diesel doesn\u2019t have the explosive properties of petrol that there wasn\u2019t a big bang!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Getting a generator company who deal with marquees regularly is ideal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks for reading<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Spencer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marquee equipment generally doesn\u2019t take much power, but as the marquee contractor you generally take responsibility for supplying power to the Band\/DJ, the caterers and anything else the customer may need. Get your customers power requirements clarified in advance. Ask them -do they need you to supply power for the DJ? If so please ask [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}