New Water Ballasts for Tents

When it comes to ballasting tents and clear span structures, there are a few acceptable ways to do it in terms of connection configurations and ballast choices. The IFAI - Tent Rental Division, of which we are members, recently commissioned a study with Clemson University as described here. This study showed how much weight should be used and in which set up configurations to meet your manufacturer's specified requirements.

The tent industry commonly uses several cement blocks sometimes weighing 5,000 pounds or more to secure their structures. These blocks are great and very effective, but aren't the most economical things in the world to get to and from a project. The cost associated with moving large amount of concrete and equal or exceed the tent itself. Depending on the customer, this could be a deal breaker. Enter water barrels.

Some companies use large 550 gallon barrels filled on site to replace the concrete blocks. The barrels weigh a fraction of the concrete when empty, that's a definite plus for shipping. Water (at roughly 8 pounds per gallon) does a nice job of meeting weight requirements for most instances. The major drawback? Have you ever seen how large a 550 gallon tank is? The tanks we were using were about 8' in diameter and 4' tall. We could fit 6 on a 24' box truck. Not bad but when you use 18 or so for a job, transportation gets expensive.

Last week, we acquired several 275 gallon, stack-able water containers that are cased with a steel frame (see below). These containers meet all of the criteria of excellent ballasts: they are heavy when full. Because the containers are stack-able, we can meet any load requirement called for. The real bonus? We can ship 28 on one 24' box truck. That is a capacity of 61,600 pounds of water on one truck. The only loose end to be tied up is to call a water truck to fill the containers on site (which we would've had with the 550 gallon barrels.) Water trucks are generally pretty cheap to hire so that expense really is a non factor.

New containers sitting next to the old ones.

We can manufacture covers to cover the industrial look of the caged containers to hide some of the industrial qualities on higher end projects like galas, or fundraisers. This is also an opportunity for our customers to enhance their event branding as they can put logos or any other message on the ballast cover that they would like.

We are thrilled with this investment and are sure that other rental companies would be as well. If you are interested in purchasing 275 gallon, steel wrapped, stack-able ballasts, please contact us at 614-837-6352 and we would be happy to quote you some prices.

Also -- for more information on the IFAI - TRD Ballasting Study, please contact the IFAI through their website linked above.

Happy Tenting!

New Inventory Available for the 2013 Season!

Part of remaining a relevant equipment rental provider is keeping current with industry trends. O'Neil Tents and Party Supplies is pleased to be the first tent rental company in the Columbus, Ohio market to offer curved beam structures.

Our inventory selection for clear span tents has followed the mold of peers in our industry: A frame structures that are engineered to be safe and leave as much unobstructed event space as possible for our customers. While these A frame clear spans work well, they can seem a little industrial, which isn't exactly what our gala and wedding customers are looking for. By adding the curved beam, you soften the look of the structure and achieve a result that is aesthetically pleasing as well as engineered for safety.

CAD Rendering of a Curved Beam Structure

Gable end view of a Curved Beam Structure

Our curved beam structures will be available in 49', 66' and 82' widths. Depending on popularity, we may expand that offering across all of our clear span rental inventory.

Please contact our sales team at 614-837-6352 to discuss how our NEW Curved Beam Clear Span Structures can work with your next event!

Road Trip!

Winter time in the tent business can be a very slow time of the year. Sure there are some smaller projects here and there, but more often than not, our guys are in the warehouse day after day doing maintenance and repairs. It gets a little monotonous.

If you are looking for some real action in the winter you have to go South, I don't mean Chillicothe South, I mean Dallas South. Last week, 6 of our guys loaded up the semi trailer and headed down to the Dallas/Fort Worth area to install an impressive 98'x328' structure as an exhibition hall. Personally, I think the guys set a record: 1 day to install the frame, 1 day to install all of the fabric. There is a reason we have some of the best installers in the business. Our customer had some tight time lines but we were able to get the job done in an effective amount of time. My hat is off to our our installers. Great work guys!

For more info about this, or any other structure, please visit us on the web at www.oneiltents.com.

Frame loaded and ready to go.

Safety first! Laying out the frame and staking the base plates.

All of the arches are up. Ready to connect the wind bracing cables.

Ours in the 3rd structure in. We enjoyed working along side some real pro's for this event.

Wintertime Wind Down

This time of year we have a handful of jobs being installed but the majority of the work being done by our crew is maintenance. In order to keep the highest quality of tents and party supplies available for your events, it is imperative to do this work.

Because our tents go out so much over the course of a summer, each tent top is inspected for any pin holes that can be patched, or if they just need a washing and some TLC, those needs are addressed. Most of our tables are being sanded and re-stained to keep them fresh as well. The items that are far past saving are either recycled or turned into another item that we may be able to use (60" round tables can be cut done to 48" round tables, etc...)

As I mentioned before, there are some projects going out but working with vinyl when it is this cold out can be a real pain. The vinyl loses its flexibility and to be honest, none of our crew really want to be out in single digit temperatures.

As the 2013 starts, we at O'Neil Tents would like to thank our customers in and around Columbus as well as other places for choosing us to be their event equipment rental provider. We have enjoyed working with you in the past and look forward to the opportunity to help you celebrate in the future!

O'Neil Manufacturing

O'Neil has been manufacturing our our tent tops, clear span tent panels, tent wall, and other related items for over 30 years now. We have relied on our vinyl welding, heat sealing and sewing machines to bulk up our own rental inventory but now its time to put our experience in manufacturing to work for you.

We acknowledge that our expertise is as a frame tent manufacturer and would like to build relationships with other rental outfits, helping to replace, enhance and bolster their tent inventories. We specialize in "Indiana" style frame tents but are capable of making a top to fit any tent our there. In addition to tent manufacturing, O'Neil is going to jump into the contract sewing and welding industries.

What the heck is a derecho anyways?

"According to the National Weather Service, a derecho is a widespread, long-lived, straight-line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms. Generally, derechos are convection-induced and take on a bow echo form of squall line, forming in an area of wind divergence in the upper levels of the troposphere, within a region of low-level warm air advection and rich low-level moisture. They travel quickly in the direction of movement of their associated storms, similar to an outflow boundary (gust front), except that the wind is sustained and increases in strength behind the front, generally exceeding hurricane-force. A warm-weather phenomenon, derechos occur mostly in summer, especially during June and July in the Northern Hemisphere, within areas of moderately strong instability and moderately strong vertical wind shear. They may occur at any time of the year and occur as frequently at night as during the daylight hours."

In other words, derecho's are fast moving bands of thunderstorms in the Midwest that can create hurricane force winds. On June 29th, a derecho came through town, clocked at 83 mph. The storm was so fast moving that it left little warning or preparation time. We had several projects set up and we had several projects go down because of that storm. While the toll was rough for a tent company in terms of loss, over a hundred thousand people lost power due to the storm, some for over a week.

We have not seen storm related damage like that since Hurricane Ike blew through the Midwest before it finally fizzled out. All told, a couple of dozen tents were lost due to the winds. More amazing to us were the tents that didn't fall down. There was no rhyme or reason as to why they were left standing. A structure engineered to with stand 80 mph winds got yanked 15' into the air and tossed about 75' through and past a chain link fence, but a 20x20 frame tent with no engineering or wind load design was o.k. in an open field. It's mind boggling.

In the end, no one was injured by our tents or structures and that's the most important thing to consider. It was an awesome reminder of just how powerful mother nature can be. Some times there is nothing that you can do but sit back and pick up the pieces when its all over.

What derecho damage looks like in person (photo by NBC4i.com):


What a derecho looks like on the radar (photo from the National Weather Service):

A Truly Special Event

A lot of talk in the industry goes on about what makes a special event. There are special event planners, special event managers, special event services companies like ours, and the list goes on and on for all things special event related. I got to thinking about it recently and the only thing that really makes one event special next to all the others is the cause that it is being held for.

Sure, birthday and graduation parties are great. We enjoy setting up weddings because of the elegance associated with them. Local fairs and festivals bring people from various communities together. In our jam packed schedule, we probably work on 2,000 "special events" of varying sizes and scope every year. To us though, probably the most special of all of those events is going on this weekend at The Ohio State University with the Special Olympics.

From the Special Olympics Ohio website --

The concept of Special Olympics began in the early 1960's when Eunice Kennedy Shriver started a day camp for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The first national meet was held at Soldier Field in Chicago in 1968 for 1,000 athletes from the United States and Canada. Shortly thereafter, Ohio began a Special Olympics program under the name of the Ohio Athletic Association. Special Olympics Ohio became incorporated in 1975. Today, there are Special Olympics programs in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and 150 different countries around the world.

Special Olympics Ohio has approximately 200 local member organizations and over 23,000 athletes who are in training and competition. These organizations originate from County Boards of MR/DD, public schools, developmental centers, parks and recreation departments, churches and parent and community groups.

We have been participating in this awesome event for as long as I can remember and I hope that O'Neil will continue to participate in it as long as possible.