There are many events especially in Canada that may opt to be outdoors and want the assurance that regardless of the weather, their event can continue as planned. Because of this, tent rentals are vastly popular – especially in climates such as ours that experience different changes in season, weather and temperature. If you’re in the market to purchase tents – whether they be pop up tents or portable fabric structures knowing the best tent manufacturers to look into can help get a head start on your research and due diligence.

The Best Tent Manufacturers in Canada

1. Warner Shelter Systems Limited (WSSL):

Located in Calgary, Alberta, WSSL was founded in 1970 by Kurt Ehrich Warner, and Gery Warner. WSSL has designed and manufactured quality award winning tents and fabric clad portable structures for over 40 years. WSSL specializes in Peak Marquee Tents, Peak Pole Tents, Twin Peak Pole Tents, Arabesque Tent & Joining System, Dome Stagecover, Tent-X-Span Fabric Structures, MOD Series Tents, and GIGA-SPAN Structures. They also welcome the opportunity to manufacture custom & specialty tents.

2. Tentnology:

Located Vancouver, British Columbia, Tentnology was originally established by Gery Warner as Warner Shelter Corp. In 1990, a share exchange took place and Gery Warner separated from Warner Shelter Systems and has been independent ever since. Tentnology has continued to develop, and innovate new, and original patented fabric structures and event tents, and is a world leader in the portable shelter industry. They specialize in manufacturing Matrix-Marquee tents, SaddleSpan tents, Mega tents, Poleadion tents, Bumbershoot & Preso tents, TSpan tents, Tranpeze Tents, and Uni Slope tents.

3. Ideal Canopy Tent & Structure Ltd:

Located in Delta, BC Ideal Canopy was founded by Rajbir Jhand in the fall of 1996. In the beginning, he operated the company with a single employee assisting in the fabrication of a variety of camping supplies in the back of a small suburban Vancouver workshop. After 13 years of attention to detail Ideal Canopy employs a staff of more than 20+ people to build North America’s finest engineered temporary tents and shelters. Ideal Canopy specializes in Marquee Tents, Megaframe Tents, Single Arch Structures, Web Truss Structures and Side Access Shelters.

4. Fiesta Tents Ltd:

With their manufacturing arm located in Montreal, Quebec, David Murray, current president of Fiesta Tents Ltd., founded Portable Stalling Inc., in 1977 which supplied tents and horse stalls for horse shows throughout Quebec and Ontario. As a result for frequent requests for event tents, the company expanded its business in 1982 to include party tents and changed their name to Tents for Events. In 1992 after the acquisition of another tent company they rebranded to Fiesta Tents Ltd. They are leading tent manufacturers of marquees, clear span tent structures and canopies for all types of functions. We offer models ranging from small 10' x 10' marquee tents to expandable 60'-wide clear span tent structures.

5. Commercial Tent:

Located in Sussex, New Brunswick, Commercial Tent has been in the tent manufacturing business for over 25 years. They offer full customization services for all new tents allowing you the ability to create the size and colour needed on their different styles of tents. They also offer high-quality used tent options for sale and offer full warranty coverage on all new and used tents.

6. Impact Canopies:

Impact Canopies Canada Inc, formally called Caravan Canopies Canada Inc was formed in 1999. They have a 10 year history of manufacturing and distributing all qualities and styles of Pop Up Canopies and Pop Up Canopy Accessories. To expand into the US and global market, in 2006 Impact Images Inc, based in California was formed to manufacture and distribute Instant Canopies and Instant Canopy Accessories. Today, they have a wide range of shapes and styles of pop up tents including domes and marquees, as well as marketing equipment such as flags, signs and banners.

Jonathan and I recently attended the National Restaurant Association’s tradeshow in Chicago, IL to learn more about the foodservice and restaurant industry including the trends that are occurring, what’s new and innovative in the industry and any additional education we could learn on the industry. As a restaurant supply store in Toronto, we thought it best to see what the largest restaurant show had to offer our customers and potential prospects. We toured both the tradeshow floor to see exhibitors such as Steelite, Oneida, Dudson, Mitylite and Lenox as well as attended some sessions of interest. Here are some of the lessons learned from the show:

1. One of the most important marketing tools next to your menu is your website.

Ensuring you have fantastic pictures of your food on your page will help ensure you differentiate yourself from the multitudes of restaurants in your area. Showcasing beautiful photos of your food enhances the likelihood of a potential customer choosing your restaurant over another. We attended a session called “Food Selfie” that featured a food photographer on how to take the best pictures for your website. While I think that the session could have been done better to provide more value some of the greatest tips learned from this session include: the quality of light is the most important factor next to what camera you use to ensure a great photo – and the sun is the best quality of light. Make sure to pre-visualize your shot in your head and keep a portfolio of magazine / web images that appeal to you as a reference. And finally play around with the angle at which you shoot the photograph as well as the textures in the photograph to ensure the photo doesn’t become too one dimensional.

2. Online restaurant reviews are a hot topic in the industry.

What I heard continuously (and quite unfortunately) is with the apparent freedom of digital anonymity, often the review tends to go past the point of civility. While sitting in a fascinating “He Said/She Said Session” other restaurant operators both independent and large multinationals chimed in how they combat the negative reviews that might be received. One session attendee, an independent restaurant operator, has seen a lot of traffic (both web traffic and actual customers) from sites such as Yelp, Groupon, and OpenTable. A specific person has been allocated to monitor all the different sites that reviews can be written on. They then collate all reviews (both negative AND positive) and have incorporated the “hits and misses” into their weekly meetings with their entire front and back of house staff. This approach has not only given them the ability to actively respond to any negative reviews to thank them for their frankness but also allows them to look for trends. It can be hard to hear but if you keep getting a review saying your salmon is too dry – that is a great opportunity to take the review into consideration and better your restaurant. This operator showed how phenomenally they’ve addressed reviews to grow the restaurant and turn negatives into positives based on how the issues are dealt with. Another operator has helped train their staff to proactively identify issues so that an issue isn’t left to fester once a diner leaves the restaurant. The staff look for cues such as a meal not being finished, a takeout container not request or feedback that the meal was “just fine” and help to circumvent a potentially negative review. Regardless on how a restaurant is dealing with reviews the overall consensus was that if you aren’t responding to your restaurant reviews – you’re missing a HUGE opportunity to ensure your customers are heard and responded to.

3. Where are trends in the industry coming from?

It used to be that the trends that ultimately prevailed would start at either coast and work in. Nowadays with culinary education, the advent of the Food Network trends truly have started to pop up everywhere because of digital prevalence. While food trends can come from anywhere these days, it certainly can be from a large national chef or a small locally owned restaurant or even in supermarkets. Also, fine dining seems to not be driving the trends the way it used to and the majority of trends appear to be coming from either supermarkets or diets.

The winter that would never end has finally come to a close. For most, it has been a slow start for the spring event season. Cash flow has been tight but now with the weather is finally turning warmer and business is picking up. You are getting requests for Chiavari chairs, tables and porcelain products you don’t have in stock. If you don’t buy them now you may lose the business to a competitor.

Not to worry, we have just the solution you need, Lease Financing for all your event equipment purchase requirements. Lease financing your purchase from a reputable leasing company is a great way to spread out large purchase costs over time to more closely match the sales the product will help you make. Lease terms typically range from 1 year to 5 years and some leasing companies will step payments up or down based on any seasonal fluctuations you may want to adjust payment for.

If you’ve been operating your Event Rental business for a number of years, leasing approval will generally be much quicker and easier than anything you might consider doing with your bank.

A sample of monthly payments from one of the Lease Financing companies.

Because we deal with a large number of party rental companies coast to coast across Canada, many of whom are making large purchases of Chiavari Chairs, Folding Tables or new porcelain dinnerware, we have become familiar with a number of lease financing companies who are very easy to deal with, professional and help to make our customer’s lives easier. Here’s a list to help you out:

1. Easylease Corp:

Easylease Corporation is a Canadian-based equipment leasing and finance company. They offer a full range of credit solutions to help you stretch your money, including equipment leasing, lease lines of credit, factoring, and term loans.

2. Jacova Financial:

Jacova Financial provides equipment leasing and financing solutions to small and medium sized businesses across a variety of industries. They offer industry leading equipment financing and also offer other services including vendor finance, corporate finance, transportation finance and insurance and financial services.

3. Pacific Sun Leasing:

Based in Kelowna, BC, Pacific Sun Leasing has been in business over 15 years helping a wide range of businesses locally and across Canada. They specialize in equipment leasing, and offer highly personalized service, a quick turnaround, and competitive pricing.

4. Lease-Line:

Lease-line has been providing uninterrupted equipment leasing services since 1985. The principals of the company are also the founders and have been in the equipment leasing industry since 1975. They’ve earned the trust of thousands of lessees and numerous vendors with their excellent equipment leasing service.

5. RoyNat Lease Finance:

Roynat Lease Finance is wholly owned by The Bank of Nova Scotia and, along with Scotia Leasing, is part of the Scotiabank Leasing Group. The Scotiabank Leasing Group is a single funding source for all sizes of leasing transactions, while Roynat’s focus is on the small to mid-ticket market.

Hopefully these 5 lease financing companies can provide you with the knowledge and security in being able to synchronize your purchase cost more finely tuned with your revenue earned.

As the substantial portion of our customer base is comprised of party and event rental businesses, we understand the need to purchase products that allow for the most turns possible. Being able to continually rent out your products allows you a greater return on investment and more recurring revenue. Purchasing Chiavari Chairs is not a small investment to make, but a necessary one to cater to one of the more popular current event themes. Ensuring you are properly maintaining your investment will help ensure you can make the most of your inventory and increase the rental margins.

1) Purchase Chiavari Chairs based on the quality of the supplier.

Ensuring that the Chiavari Chairs you purchase are strong, durable and able to withstand a large load capacity will help safeguard your investment. Also, be wary of low cost Chiavari Chair suppliers – it seems cliché for me to say but many of our US competitors in particular have been known to push their manufacturing suppliers to cut the costs of their Chiavari Chair. Over time, this can only be done when shortcuts are made to the manufacturing process ultimately resulting in a reduction in the quality of the chairs over time.

2) As a Rental Company it makes sense for you to use Chiavari Chair Storage Covers to cover your chairs when not in use.

A banquet hall or hotel that uses Chiavari Chairs full time in their ballrooms generally do not need chair covers because there’s substantially less transportation and handling of the chairs which can cause wear and tear. Rental Businesses however, should consider using Chiavari Chair storage covers. Not only does this protective cover safeguard your chair during storage in the warehouse and transportation to and from events but it will greatly improve the aesthetic life of your chairs and reduce overall maintenance costs required to ensure your chairs are kept looking new. National Event Supply includes chiavari chair storage covers within the cost of their chair – but we also sell separately in case you bought from another supplier that didn’t include in your purchase.

3) Examine your Chiavari Chairs before every rental job.

Unfortunately due to the nature of the rental business, chairs can get scuffed up or scratched at an event – especially around the bottom of the legs. Wood Chiavari Chairs tend to show scratches more as the bare wood shows through once the coloured finish has been scratched. Scratches on Resin Chiavari chairs that have a similar colour to the exterior finish throughout the chair are less visible. That being said, touch ups can be performed on the chair by using a spray paint that matches with a clear top coat spray to help protect for future uses.

Hopefully this post will help make sure your Chiavari Chairs look like new for years to come.

We’ve been trying to address customer questions for a while now and one of the pain points that many customers who bought our folding chair dolly have experienced is the lack of ability to transport folding chairs utilizing the folding chair dolly from pavement to grass and back seamlessly.

The current wheels (see below) on the folding chair dolly are perfect for pavement but when you have 50 folding chairs on the folding chair dolly, it becomes a real nightmare to maneuver on grass.

Enter the folding chair dolly with “no air” wheels...

With heavy duty grooved wheels that evenly distribute weight, this cart easily transitions from grass to pavement with up to 50 chairs on it. The wheels are also what are coined “no air wheels”. Filled with foam instead of air, they will never deflate; making maintenance a breeze. The cart is priced at $175.00 CDN not including taxes or shipping.