In-Tents Events

“Sometimes [clients] will have a theme already in mind like Mardi Gras, and they’ll specifically ask for feathers and emerald green,” says Shereé Bochenek, design consultant at Après. “But sometimes they’ll be hands off and say, ‘Here are our corporate colors; get to work.’ Sometimes we’ll work from the invitation, taking the colors and theme and feel.”

Bochenek admits that meeting planners are sometimes daunted by the number of décor choices for tents. “You’ll have someone who calls on the phone thinking gold damask, but we have literally thousands of different fabrics in our showroom with different colors and textures. Once they see that, they begin to think a little further outside the box.

“We have sheer draping that, at 120 inches, can swag a wide area,” she adds. “We string the fabric with twinkle lights and cover the metal frames and poles in white, and light those too.” Chandeliers can be hung from the metal horizontal span of clearspan tents.

And there are other options. “You can supply color wash uplighting . . . along the perimeter of the tent,” Bochenek says. “Or you can affix the lights to the center pole to reflect downward and provide pin spotlighting.”

“If the client wants something like colored intelligent lighting, then we subcontract that work,” Bach notes.

Ninety-five percent of the projects will need a power source, and again subcontracting is often needed. “Oftentimes, for small power needs, we can run extension cords from a building,” Ewing says. “If there’s no power nearby, Skyway has generators, and the event planner just has to let us know their needs. As with the lighting and sound, if it gets to be a big production, we can get subcontracted power.”

Tent companies will do what they can to streamline the process. “We can do everything under one umbrella,” Bach says. “If a meeting planner approaches us and she needs lighting, generators, and bathrooms, we can link her to those services and feed everything into one overall bill if that’s what she’d like.”

Tents have become a preferred option for many meeting planners, who consider the added logistics a fair trade for the event of a lifetime. “We care about aesthetics,” Bochenek says. “We think that it’s important and makes a difference, and clients want that, too.”