My original title for this was \u2018how to think when running a marquee hire business\u2019 but I thought two things<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2013 I don\u2019t want to tell anyone how to think
\u2013 If anyone told me how to think they wouldn\u2019t get a very good reception!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m talking about what stock to buy and how to use it. My suggested approach is simply to look at every factor when you consider buying something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sound obvious? Well there\u2019s a lot of hire businesses out there that don\u2019t so I figured it was worth mentioning. Here are the main things I\u2019d consider:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Initial price<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Pretty self explanatary, this is how much it costs (include delivery etc).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Be careful \u2013 a lot of salesman think you operate on a 100% profit basis. I remember someone selling me advertising once said \u2018if you\u2019re getting \u00a31000 per hire then all you need is two bookings to make this \u00a31600 advert worth it\u2019. I then had to explain about labour. transport, insurance and every other cost you encounter when running a business. But then I can\u2019t talk as even we do it! We advertise our marquees saying you\u2019ll be in profit in 2 hires but realistically with the other costs involved it\u2019ll actually be 3 or 4 hires (which I still think is quite impressive).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Storage space<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s no good earning \u00c2\u00a320,000 a year if storage and transport costs you \u00a325,000. It\u2019s for this reason that if Iwas starting again I\u2019d think twice about stocking furniture. It takes up a lot of room in storage, it can fill a van up on it\u2019s own and isn\u2019t that lucrative \u2013 if there\u2019s a good furniture hire company nearby I\u2019d negotiate a discount with them and get them to do all my furniture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Labour time & number of people<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Again pretty self explanatory and probably the easiest thing to dimiss when costing out a new product as it\u2019s \u2018only\u2019 your own time. Take chandeliers as an example \u2013 our double chandelier package costs \u00a3280 + VAT currently and most hire companies will charge \u00a3100 to \u00a3150 per hire for them. Put in the fact that they take up very little space in storage and they seem a no-brainer BUT they take at least 30mins to set up (longer the first time or if the power source is awkward). If you\u2019re putting marquees up in evenings then this could add on time you don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You also need to think about the number of people needed for anything. It doesn\u2019t matter how organised you are at some point you\u2019ll be out on site with only one other person -this is actually why we make our marquee frames out of 38mm pipe, if we made it out of the next size up (50mm) then 2 people just couldn\u2019t put it up on their own, you\u2019d need 3 or 4 people at least. Besides 38mm is very strong and we use vertical and horizontal roof braces to strengthen the structure so there\u2019s no need to use 50mm -the best of both worlds<\/p>\n\n\n\n Life expectancy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s the thing going to be worth in a few years time? How many years\/hires are you likely to get out of it? Going back to chandeliers we had chandeliers that were 10 years old and still worked and looked fine (make sure they\u2019re not knocking about in the van). Something like carpet however you\u2019ll only get a few hires out of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hope this is of interest to you guys, I realise it all sounds like common sense but it\u2019s very easy to get carried away in any hire business thinking you must buy everything straight away or you must buy the strongest possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you wanted the best possible finish for a wedding then you\u2019d build something out of brick with bespoke furniture inside. Marquees are by their nature a compromise, it\u2019s creating the inside outside in a way that looks great but can be packed up in a van and put up again for the following weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks for reading<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spencer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My original title for this was \u2018how to think when running a marquee hire business\u2019 but I thought two things \u2013 I don\u2019t want to tell anyone how to think\u2013 If anyone told me how to think they wouldn\u2019t get a very good reception! I\u2019m talking about what stock to buy and how to use […]<\/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-10790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10790","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=10790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}