Stamford Tent Adds 860 to its Tent OX fleet
2020’s COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t done tent and event dealers any favors, but some of the bigger tent and event companies are doing their best to take it in stride. Such is the case at Stamford Tent & Event Services, (https://www.stamfordtent.com/) in Connecticut. It already had three Tent OX machines and it recently took delivery of the newest and biggest available system comprised of the Avant 860 and a full complement of Tent OX attachments. As business began to pick up, their initial concern about not being able to take advantage of it in spring due to shutdowns evaporated. Prospects for the rest of the year began to improve.
Need for a heavier lifter
Stamford’s VP of Operations Brian Rieke pointed out that their 755 and 760-based Tent OX systems worked fine for all but one task: moving their biggest concrete ballast blocks. Any of his other three machines can drive or pull stakes or push poles all the way through the company’s hundred- and 120-wide inventory. Still, they were doing many jobs, including structure installs, and the company’s 3500 lb blocks were pushing the lifting limits of the machines.
Stamford Tent & Event Services can move ballast blocks more efficiently.
“We were able to move the big blocks with the 755 and 760 machines,” Rieke observes. “But the high weight was flattening the tires and we had to overinflate to compensate. We got the 860 almost exclusively for the added flexibility of dealing with the large blocks. Its higher reach is also useful.”
Four machines creates greater efficiency
Now, with four machines, Stamford has been able to enhance its efficiency. It often sends two crew members an hour ahead to lay out the tent and drive stakes. “When the rest of the crew arrives, we’re pulling the sections off with the forklift and the guys are lacing it.” Stamford can run as many as 18 jobs simultaneously, with Tent OX providing much of the leverage to extend a limited labor pool.
The future of event labor may include outsourcing
Most tent rental companies are hoping that a “new normal” of mostly improved business will develop sometime in 2021 once COVID-19’s effect on their businesses has passed. But even then, the company’s approach to putting up tents will change permanently due to an industry-wide struggle to recruit labor. While Tent OX helps reduce Stamford’s labor requirements, the company took an additional step in 2019 of bringing in professional labor companies to augment its core staff. In recent times only one or two of 50 seasonal workers would return to work the following year. “Younger generation workers don’t really want to get into blue collar positions,” he says.
Keeping the most valuable crew members on the job.
Rieke views Tent OX as a way to keep the most valuable and most efficient crew members on the job and happy longer than if they were being asked to carry stake drivers and swing sledgehammers into their 50s and 60s. “Stamford has staff members that have been around for 20 or 30 years,” he explains. “Most of our foremen are between 40 and 60, with only two under 40. Tent OX has become an important tool for transforming how much of the hard work that comes with the job gets done.”