Tent and Event Rental Industry Uses Tent OX to Reverse Labor-Related Profitability Problems

The tent and event rental industry has traditionally been a business that requires a lot of labor, a fact that has gone virtually unchallenged for centuries. While hand-held pneumatic drivers have improved stake driving speed somewhat, and using lifts and forklift machines have provided some relief, most of the tasks your crews perform during tent set up or take down have still not been mechanized sufficiently to lower labor costs and make a good profit.

 As the unemployment rate continues to fall, labor is increasingly hard to come by. You already know that…

• The cost of labor, including worker compensation claims, is expensive, and it is only getting more so
• It’s hard to adequately staff your business to manage peak workloads
•     Seasonal staff turnover complicates your goal to schedule all the jobs that come your way
• Senior staff may opt out of the business prematurely because it literally wears them out

The story behind Tent OX

No tent business is immune to these challenges. Regardless of size, location or specialty, businesses like yours feel the impact on their bottom line. That was Scott Woodruff’s case too. Scott owned a large regional tent and event company in the Harrisburg, PA area, and over time he was working to develop new tools that would reduce time on the job and take some of the most strenuous jobs off the backs of tent crews. Tent OX System, introduced in 2014, is the result.

As you’ll soon read below, tent and event companies, who have purchased Tent OX System for use across the US and in Canada, love it!

Not individual tools, but  a tent installation system

Rather than borrowing products from other industries and adapting them on a one-off basis for tent installs, Scott designed Tent OX with a system-level approach. That means each attachment is designed specifically to drive down time on the job and increase the amount of profit each install will generate. Every task — whether stake driving, stake pulling, materials handling, pole pushing, or other duties — is completed faster with Tent OX, in greater safety, with less effort, and using fewer staff.

Customers use Tent OX to address their most common challenges

Tent Ox addresses each of the industry’s common challenges to reduce labor costs and installation times. Within a few weeks of adding Tent OX to their crews, customers have reported much faster installs and a reduced number of labor hours required to complete each job.

 

Here are a few, real-life examples from Tent OX customers:

 

BC Tent and Awning Company of Avon, MA has been able to leverage the Tent OX’s high level of mechanization to reduce install times for jobs by 25%. “In addition to improving our labor,” says Gene LaPierre, Vice President of Operations, “the Tent OX has made a difference to nearly every aspect of our day-to-day operations, streamlining everything from how we store and move our inventory to the type of fleet we use.”

McCarthy Tents, of Rochester and Buffalo, NY offers a powerful before-and-after illustration of Tent OX labor savings. “We did a job with two 60-wides and three 40-wides a year before we got a Tent OX System, and it took 11 hours and 14 guys to complete the setup. With Tent OX, we completed the exact same job in just 7.5 hours with 11 guys. That’s three fewer guys, and 4.5 fewer hours,” says owner Sean McCarthy. “Last fall we saved around $8,000 in temporary labor costs alone. Morale is up too, because Tent OX does so much of the hard, physical work.”

Special Events Virginia of Portsmouth, VA, reports that it has been able to keep employees longer when a Tent OX takes over the most physically demanding tasks, like driving and pulling stakes, as well as moving materials from truck to tent site. “I’ve been working in the industry for 14 years and I can say first hand that Tent OX System has given me and my employees a longer career lifespan to keep doing what we love,” says Matt Smith, warehouse manager.

Diamond Rental, with locations in Salt Lake City, Orem and Ogden, Utah, says that last year they were setting up four pole tents (three 60-wides and one 100-wide) using Tent OX System for the first time. They couldn’t believe how much shorter install times could be. Where it used to take one week and a crew of eight guys to set up this job, now the same crew and a Tent OX machine needed just two days, according to Mark Hiles, rental store manager. 

Elite Events and Rentals of Clearwater Florida says that after only a few months of Tent OX, Elite Events and Rentals has really begun to leverage its potential for time and manpower savings. Now they send just four guys, instead of the usual six, to do a 60-wide setup. That’s a savings of two guys who can now be assigned to another job, according to owner Brandon Algren.

Canvas Unlimited of Jackson Hole, Wyoming calculates that, with a Tent OX System and articulated loader they reduce their time on large jobs by 20%. “We still send the same number of crew to a job, but we go full force and move on to the next one in a fraction of the time,” explains Paul Perry, co-owner. “Tent OX allows us to complete two or three jobs in a day.”

Windswept Entertainment of Latrobe, PA shares a specific example of how the business’s Tent OX System won the day on a specific job. “In 2015, on one of the busiest weeks of the year, we were maxed out with our crew,” co-owner Adam Ghrist explains. “We got a call for a big job that needed an 80’ x 130’ tent installed that same day! With Tent OX, we were able to load all the equipment and do the install with just four people. There’s no way we could have taken on that job before!”

From these customer stories, you can see why the Tent OX installation system is disrupting tent set up and take down processes that have gone unchallenged for many years. Whether you’re focused on cutting labor or reducing the time spent on each job, there is finally a tool that helps you accomplish both!

Let us tell you more about what Tent OX can do for your business.