Michigan Irish Music Festival 2011

We showed up Thursday, left on Sunday afternoon and set up 4 clear span structures, 2 40' pole tents and about 20 frames in between. The 7 hour drive up to Muskegon is well worth the results achieved by our crew. The setting at Heritage Landing is absolutely beautiful and a great place to have a festival. In addition to the Irish Music Festival, the park hosts Summer Celebration each year (a gigantic festival/concert series).

The spec's of the job changed a little bit this year from last. The Festival requested that we change one of the 40' frame tents to a 15m clear span. Its interesting to me that once a customer uses structures, they tend to not want anything else. The functionality of the new structure should be great for the Festival. They now have a tented area with a taller side height than the frame, and our structure can stand up to just about anything that mother nature can throw at it. Other than the changed tent, the project was very similar to the last couple of years.

We wish the folks at the Irish Music Festival nothing but the best of luck with this year's event and we look forward to working with them in the future.

2011 World Jet Masters Photos

Photos by: Model Airplane News, Model Aviation and TJ Rohyans.
20x20 Vendor Tent Row:


20x20 Frame for Flight Judges:


Airplane Evaluation 10m Structure:

Airplane Storage/Prep Area 25m Structure:

More Airplane/Prep Area:

Foreground, 10m Evaluation Area. Middle, 25m Storage/Prep Area. Back, 80 Pole tent.

Why Google Analytics Helps our Business

After a major overhaul of our website last winter. One of my jobs as the sales and marketing manager is to make sure our customers are getting the content they need from our website. Without knowing every single one of the thousands of people who visit our site in a months time, its hard to call them and get feedback. I started doing a little research and found that Google Analytics was the right tool for the job.

Not only can I see where traffic is coming from (direct traffic, search engines, referring sites, etc...), I can see what is important to our customers as they make decisions about their equipment rental. I can see what types of content our customers value like pictures or information about our company and I can see how our customers navigate our site to get where they want to go.

Google does not give personal information like addresses or emails, but I can see where people are checking us out from at a city level. This helps me to target certain markets that have shown interest in our company. I can tell google to show me the content that matters most to the people who visit our site from Lexington, KY. I can see if they are interested in tables, chairs, structures or frame tents. I can see how much time visitors stay on each page and at what point in navigation they clicked out of our site (this is called a bounce). Action can be taken on the highest bounce rate locations by modifying the content on those pages to keep prospective customers on the site longer.

There is a ton more that Google Analytics can do for you, but the best part of all of these metrics and the information is that its completely free. If you don't use google analytics to track your webpage content, you're missing a serious opportunity to give your customers what they want.

Safety and Peace of Mind

As city state and local governments begin stepping up their enforcement of safety in event equipment like tents, staging, production rigging, festival rides, etc... It reminds of me the big leaps in safety our industry has taken in recent years to protect the attendees of our events. Long before certain standards were set in place, manufacturers created tents that were engineered for various wind loads, snow loads, and hanging loads. Our structures (which we started renting in 1982) were engineered to stand up to 90 mph winds in certain exposures and can hold a static weight of 1,000 pounds per arch safely. Before engineered tents came along, customers didn't necessarily have the peace of mind that they now find. They can now rest assured that only an "act of God" will effect their event.

Unfortunately, that is what we saw at the Indiana State Fair this past weekend when a freak wind gust blew through the fair grounds, killing 5, injuring almost 50 more, and mangling production rigging. This tragedy serves as a reminder that when the general public, or any one for that matter, attends an event, the highest level of precaution must be taken to ensure their safety. To be clear, I have no idea if the set up the equipment was safe or not, or if it was installed properly or not. Sometimes these things are beyord our control, but they need to be considered when planning an event.

Initially, our customers balked at the increase in price to add higher levels of safety to their events. Slowly over time though, they have seen the benefit of covering their assets and guests with structures that will do a much better job of protection from the elements. We recently wrote about a large pole tent going down at an event. I was personally on site to monitor the tents in case of emergency. I was able to see the instability take shape and we shut the tent down so there wasn't a chance anyone could enter a potentially unsafe position (also with the help of the National Guard, vendors were prohibited from entering the tent).

It is now my position as an event professional to make sure this situation doesn't happen again. It is my job to plan a safer alternative for my customer. After all, I'm the one with the expertise as to what can make the situation safer for him, his guests, and his vendors. Once I make the proposal though, its up to the festival and organizers if they will act upon my suggestions. Hopefully they see the merit in using safer structures in a position that is potentially dangerous based on the weather.

To sum up, some companies are complaining that the cost of safer materials are too expensive and prohibitive. Some customers are worried that they will not be able to afford the additional costs. All city, state and local governments do not care about those concerns. Their only concern is the safety of the event attendees -- and rightfully so.

* A note to the tent companies on the fence about purchasing structures or engineered tents: While the newer tents do cost more, they are extremely durable (we still use some of our original frame work that is almost 30 years old), the tents are easy to install (our crews can set up a 20,000 square foot structure in less than 8 hours), and your insurance company will love you for cutting your liability.

Ichthus Festival Follow Up

Lessons Learned:

1. Pole Tents don't do well in 40 mph winds.

2. Stakes don't have the same holding power in Rock as they do in normal soil conditions.

3. The guys at Goff Southeast Tents are real pros.

Over all, the event went very well. There were some minor complications during the week due to weather (i.e. guy ropes loosening, stakes pulling, etc...) but the event was still able to go on. There were a couple of instances that we erred on the side of safety that we closed a couple of the tents until they could be re-secured.

Then the morning of tear down arrived. The grounds of the Ichthus festival (as described in our previous post) were a little challenging. Between the situation of staking into rock and the largest tents being on the top of a hill, we faced an overall losing battle. The weather on Sunday morning, according to the National Weather Service, boasted 30 mph winds for about 6 hours with gusts up to 40mph as well as steady rain. This combination of factors caused the pole tents we had on the top of the hill to be knocked down. Fortunately the tops weren't severely damaged and they will be repaired. One of our center poles wasn't as fortunate and was folded in half. This pole must be scrapped. If you've never seen a piece of steel 6" in diameter bent like play dough, please see below (now you might appreciate the precaution in shutting down the tents while they were re-secured).

We got a call from the folks at the festival, as well as our tear down crew, to let us know about the issue. Fortunately, like vendors at every other festival we work with, all of the vendors were packed up and out of town the night the festival was over. Also, no one was allowed on the grounds as the festival had closed. No one was injured other than our poor tops and center pole.

Finally, my comment about the guys at Goff Southeast Tents. When we had issues with stakes pulling from the rock bed and ultimately a tent coming halfway down in a storm, I called them to see if I could use their hammer drill and jackhammer to resecure the stakes and help put the tent back in the air. Without hesitation, they sent a crew of guys to help me out. Ian Goff, their manager, made sure I had all of the resources I needed to make sure the job was done and done right. Thanks to them, the Ichthus Festival could go on as planned. I hope one day to be able to return them the favor they gave me. Its nice to know that in the competetive industry that we are in, there are guys out there who will lend a hand, no questions asked. Those guys are real pros and we are certainly in their debt.

Moving forward, we have a few more crazy weeks of installs ahead before we get to catch a break after July 4th. After that break we head into the Ohio State Fair and the Dublin Irish Festival installs. With what we've learned at the Ichthus Festival, we'll plan to be as safe as possible for the foreseeable future.

Ichthus Festival - Wilmore, KY

I'm told that this event is called the Woodstock of Christian Music. I know it as the event with the hardest surface to drive stakes that we've ever set up. The folks at the Ichthus Music Festival in Wilmore, KY (just southwest of Lexington) do a tremendous job putting together all of the elements that make a great festival.

Starting with the setting, farm land tucked away in horse country, the 360 degree views from the event space are only of nature and are quite awe-inspiring. The festival space has nothing but plenty of room to enjoy about 100 different bands on 4 stages. Across the acreage of the farm we set up several large, traditional pole style tents from 60 to 100 feet wide. These tents should give ample coverage from the sun for the tens of thousands that are anticipated to arrive later this week.

I was personally impressed that, even though this farm is seemingly in the middle of no where, the facilities on site are just as impeccable as the land they sit on. They have huge restroom and shower facilities for the concert goers, running water in dozens of locations around the grounds, and very well laid out electrical service at all parts of the farm.

In terms of the installation, we arrived last Tuesday afternoon and began to work immediately. Before the end of the day, we had both 100'x200' tents in the air. We then started working on the rest of the tents on Wednesday, first laying them out, then circling back around to actually put them up. Rather than devote all of our guys to one tent at a time, we worked in an assembly line fashion where a handful of guys were responsible for lacing and laying out stakes. The next group of guys would come in and put in side poles and center poles. The final group of guys would come through and tighten everything down. The teams would move on in shifts from tent to tent until the entire install of the large tents was done. I found this method to be extremely efficient.

One note on tent installation in Kentucky: ALWAYS BRING A HAMMER DRILL TO PRE DRILL ALL STAKE HOLES. A regular jackhammer will not drive re-bar or steel stakes through the Kentucky rock. This is a lesson we learned very quickly and I am happy to pass it on to any other tent company installing tents in that area.

All in all, we finished our installation in 3 and a half days. That was what we scheduled for the job so I'm pleased in that regard. I think we could've moved a bit quicker if we were better prepared for the staking surface. Our part of the event is now complete and the folks at Ichthus are setting up the rest of their staging, lighting, sound equipment, etc... I wish them nothing but luck with set up and the event.

Its been a while since we've posted anything as we're in the middle of our busiest time of the year. To show the craziness we go through to complete graduation parties, please check out this article from the Columbus Dispatch this past weekend. On top of the 160 graduation parties we set up last weekend, we also provided tenting for events around the Memorial Tournament, a fundraising event for St. Jude's at the Columbus Zoo, the Columbus Arts festival, and the OHSAA State Championship Track meet at OSU. Our guys have been working serious overtime for the last 3 weeks. This week upcoming looks to be just as busy as the last couple but we should be returning back to normal and our crews will be happy to finally get some rest! Photos of those events listed above to come.