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Party Equipment and Tent Rental Rental:
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What kind of services can a party equipment and tent rental company can give you, what should you know and what should you expect?
This past Spring, I interviewed Larry Ott of Newtown Party Center to find out. Using his company as an example, we take you through the process of choosing and renting party equipment and tents.
Here is our interview.
First I asked Larry to describe his background in the special events industry and his company, Newtown Party Center, so you would have a context to place his comments.
EMZ: OK, Larry, just tell me, basically, what does your company do?
LO: Well for special event planning purposes, whenever someone wants to have either an indoor or outdoor event they contract with us to get the equipment they might not have, in other words, tenting, tables, chairs, china, linen, pretty much any items that you need for an event you can get through us. We have a vast network of suppliers whereby if we don’t have it in our inventory we can get a hold of it.
And we also have, as you’re finding out, one or two venues where we set up tents long-term, that way you can have your event, if you don’t have the space or if you find our venues unique, you can have your event at our venue up in Newtown (PA), and there’s another one over in Langhorne, (PA).
LO: which is proving to be very very useful to many people.
EMZ: You service indoor events as well?
LO: That’s correct.
EMZ: I mean with the linens and the chairs...
LO: Around Thanksgiving, we’re doing hundreds of deliveries to homes for tables, chairs, china, but usually on a smaller basis. People need to seat up to 20 people, they don’t have 20 place settings. So they’ll call us and get 20 place settings. It all depends on the event.
EMZ: What is the radius of the area that you service?
LO: Anywhere our wheels will take us.
EMZ: (laughter) You’re based in Newtown, PA.
LO: We’re based in Newtown, we try to stay within the tri-state area (PA, NJ, DE). We’ll go certain distances, but just like anybody else if we have to go too far, we have to start charging a little bit more.
EMZ: So how long have you been around?
LO: Newtown has been around for over 25 years, and I’ve been in the industry for over 10 years.
EMZ: How did you get into the party equipment and tent rental industry?
LO: Actually, just I took a part-time job after college. I was trying to make ends meet, and found the industry very exciting and very unique.
EMZ:Oh, that sounds cool.
LO: Yes...
EMZ: Yeah, and here you are 10 years later.
LO: I never pictured the party equipment and tent rental business was where I was going to be. (Laughter).
Using the services of a party equipment and tent rental company
EMZ: Let’s say I wanted to have an event and wanted to use your services, how do I pick out the materials? Do you have catalogs? How does this work?LO: That’s correct. All you have to do is give us a call, we have both a catalog and we have a website.
Basically what people do is give us a call and talk to one of our coordinators here, there’s a couple of people who can answer the phone and talk to you intelligently about your event. We try to guide you in the right direction. We try to educate you as to what we offer, what the best material is for your event.
In other words, certain units, certain tents are not applicable to your event. If you’re having a backyard party, say a graduation party or something like that. Something very informal, you don’t really need a tent. You can go with an all purpose canopy.
Whereas if you’re having a wedding, something that is definitely going to happen, there is no way we’re not having the event today regardless of the weather, you’re going to want to go with a tent. You’re going to want something sturdy. Something that is put up by professionals. Something that’s more elegant.
Again, our event coordinators will sit there and they’ll guide you through that process. We’ll then send you out a catalog. That way you can see everything that we carry, and of course, we invite you to the website.
To contact Larry or his party equipment and tent rental company, Newtown Party Center:
Larry Ott
Newtown Party Center
861 Newtown-Yardley Road
Newtown, PA 18940
Tel: 215 860 0819
Email: Larry@newtownrental.com
Web:
www.newtownrental.com