Marquees are great for when you need more space. They can be put up, and taken down, quickly. They do virtually no damage to the surface you put them up on and they have a really low carbon footprint. But if you are going to use a marquee for a long time, or multiple time a year, would it not make sense to buy one, rather than hire one? These are the reasons we believe it is better for you to hire instead of buying a marquee. 

Frequency of use 

If you know you are going to be using a marquee multiple times, you may consider buying a marquee.  If you have already looked into the costs of buying a marquee, may we make a suggestion: use our Cost Calculator to see how often you can hire one for the same cost. Click here to use the calculator. 

Installation 

If you buy a marquee, you’ll have to erect it, and take it down whenever you need to.  Do you have the equipment, the skills and the people to do this? Obviously the bigger the marquee, the more complex this operation becomes. 

When you hire a marquee from us, we will do this for you, as often as is needed. We recently took down a marquee to allow some filming, and then put it back up the next day! 

Opex vs capex

Buying a marquee is a Capital Cost and so it joins your asset list and its cost is added to your balance sheet. Over time, you will depreciate its value. When you hire a marquee, it is an operational cost and is therefore a direct cost that is immediately tax deductible.  

Maintenance 

A brand new marquee, when erected properly, looks great. Bright white (most marquees are this colour) PVC, perhaps with your branding added, makes a real statement and supports your business branding. However, over time, this can fade. Weather and usage mean your marquee gets dirty, moves (by wind and people) and can be damaged.  If you own your marquee, you have to deal with all of this. 

If you hire a marquee, this all becomes our issue. We regularly renew our portfolio to keep it in tip top condition. All marquee sheets are cleaned regularly and we respond quickly whenever a client reports an issue. 

Storage 

If you have a family tent, you know how much room they take up in your garaPVCge or your loft. So imagine how much space a marquee takes up when you aren’t using it. The PVC sheets can be folded and stacked. The poles can be stacked, or lined up against a wall, but they still take up a lot of space. Space that you could make much better use of for your business. 

When hiring a marquee, we take everything away at the end of your hire period and then bring it back when you need it again. None of your storage space is used up and you don’t have to worry about telling your insurance company about the big metal pieces that could, if not stacked and secured properly, cause problems. 

Requirement changes 

We provide marquees for many of our clients year after year and event after event. Some of them have the same size marquee every year, but many use different sizes each time.  

Imagine you buy a marquee and then host a wonderfully popular event. Next time, you want to run a bigger event, but that means buying a bigger marquee, or at least an extension.  Why not keep it simple and hire instead and enjoy the flexibility? 

So, if you have spare cash, plenty of space, trained staff and confidence that you will have the same needs for some time, you may be better buying a marquee. In the meantime, we believe you will be better off hiring. To find out how much it costs to hire a marquee, choose one of these links: 

For events and other short term hires, click here 

For long term hires: click here.