Event production from the site survey to the last truck out
Event production is the work around the equipment: walking your property, drawing the layout on it, sequencing the load-in, installing in the right order, standing by through the event where the job needs it, and taking it all down after. We own the gear, the trucks and the crew, so the schedule is ours to keep.
Where this page sits
Every other page on this site is equipment. This one is the work
The rest of the site tells you what we own. This page is the part that never appears on a rental list: who walks the property before anything is quoted, who decides where the tent sits and which way it faces, what order the trucks pull in, and who is on site at four in the afternoon when the caterer needs a sidewall opened.
You can rent the tent from one company, the floor from a second and the tables from a third, and each will be right about their own piece. What none of them owns is the morning. When the flooring crew arrives before the tent is up, the two companies talk to you instead of to each other, and the day you lose is yours.
We quote the whole build instead. Cover comes from tent rentals, the floor, lighting, power and climate from party equipment rentals, the plates, linens and bar gear from catering equipment rentals, and the seating from furniture rentals.
None of this is a separate line item. It is how the job gets done. A backyard party with a tent, a floor and forty chairs still gets a survey and a drawing, because the tree, the slope and the gate set the order just as firmly as on a two hundred guest build.
Stage one
What a site survey actually looks at
An hour on your property with a measuring wheel and a notebook. Six things get written down, and every one of them changes something later.
The ground and the grade
How big the usable footprint really is once you stop at the treeline, and how far it falls across that footprint. A lawn that looks flat from the patio often drops a foot corner to corner, and that number decides whether you need a sub-floor.
The route in
Gate width, turn radius, low branches, the soft shoulder that swallows a loaded truck after a wet week, and how close we can park to the tent site. Everything gets carried from where the truck stops, so that distance is a real cost in hours.
What is under the grass
Irrigation, septic fields, invisible fence, well lines and utility runs. Stakes go into the ground, so this is where we ask what you know, what your landscaper knows, and whether a mark-out is needed before the date.
What is overhead
Service drops, limbs, roof eaves and anything a peak or a lift has to clear. A tent that fits the lawn on paper is still the wrong tent if the only way to raise it runs through a branch.
Power and water
Where the panel is, what already sits on those circuits, and how far it is to the nearest usable outlet and spigot. This decides whether the night runs off the house or off a generator, and it is better answered in April than on the Friday.
Where the rest of the event lives
The kitchen door, the parking, the bathrooms, the pool, the spot the photographer wants at sunset. The tent is one object in a night with six moving parts, and how those parts sit relative to each other is most of what a layout solves.
Stage two
A layout drawn on your property beats a diagram off a shelf
Capacity charts assume an empty rectangle. They will tell you a certain tent seats a certain number at round tables, and that is true in a parking lot. Your lawn has a pool on one side, a slope to the west, one tree you are not cutting down and a gate the truck has to fit through. A layout is the same arithmetic done on the shape you actually have.
It settles two things. Where the tent goes and which way it faces: the long axis usually follows the run of the lawn, the open end faces the view, the back lands nearest the kitchen door rather than the driveway. Then what goes where underneath: entry, bar, dinner tables, dance area, and the service lane the caterer uses to get hot food out without crossing the dance floor.
The second part is where bad nights come from. A bar opposite the entrance pulls every guest through the seating. A dance area backed onto the buffet means the line and the dancing fight for the same six feet by nine o'clock. Moving a rectangle on a drawing costs nothing. Moving eighteen tables at six on Saturday costs the cocktail hour.
The drawing is also the document everyone else works from. Your caterer wants the back of house and the walking distance to the tables. The band wants the stage position and where power lands. The florist wants to know which tables are round before the arrangements are built. Handing out one drawing answers those questions once instead of five times by phone.
The build sequence
Ten stages, in the order they actually happen
An install sequence is a list of stages where each one has to finish before the next can start. Pick a stage to see what happens in it, who owns it, and what it holds up if it slips.
What happens
We measure the usable footprint, take the fall across it, check the route in, and note what is buried and what is overhead.
Who owns it
Us, with you there if you can be. You bring what only you know: the irrigation, the septic, the neighbor's tree, whether that back gate opens.
What it holds up
Everything. A tent quoted off a satellite image is a guess, and guesses come back as change orders in the last week.
What happens
The survey becomes a drawing: tent size and position, the zones under it, the service lane, where power enters, where heat or fans sit.
Who owns it
Us to draw, you to approve. Your planner or caterer usually has an opinion worth hearing here, and it is far cheaper now than later.
What it holds up
The order. Table counts, floor size, lighting runs and heater placement all come off the layout, so the quote is not final until the drawing is.
What happens
Whatever your town, venue or insurer needs on file: a tent permit application, a stamped drawing, a fire marshal review of exits and heating, a certificate of insurance.
Who owns it
Shared. We supply drawings, specifications and insurance paperwork. Applications are normally filed by the property owner or their representative, since the permit attaches to the property.
What it holds up
The install date. Requirements and review times differ town to town across Long Island, which is why this stage starts early.
What happens
Trucks are loaded in reverse order of use, staking points get marked, and the drop zone is set where the crew will not have to carry anything twice.
Who owns it
Us. What we need from you is access: gates unlocked, cars moved, dogs in, and somebody reachable by phone for the first twenty minutes.
What it holds up
The whole install day. A truck that cannot reach the lawn turns a four hour build into a long carry, and that time comes off the end.
What happens
On sloped or uneven ground a sub-floor is built and leveled first, and the tent is raised onto it. On level ground the deck goes in once the frame is standing, laid to the tent's real footprint rather than to the drawing.
Who owns it
Us, and it is the stage hosts underestimate most. Leveling a lawn takes longer than putting a tent up over it.
What it holds up
Tables, chairs and anything on wheels. Furniture set on a floor still being leveled has to be picked up and set again, so flooring finishes before one table arrives.
What happens
Frame or poles up, top on, then anchoring to the surface it sits on: stakes into turf, ballast on asphalt and hardscape. Sidewalls go on last so they can come off again.
Who owns it
Us, start to finish. Our own crew raises our own tents, so a question on site gets answered by the company that will be there on the day.
What it holds up
Lighting, drape and anything that hangs. All of it attaches to the frame, so nothing above head height starts until the tent is standing and anchored.
What happens
Generator or house feed set and distributed, cable run and covered where guests walk, lighting hung off the frame, heat or fans placed with their clearances kept.
Who owns it
Us for the equipment and the distribution. You and your vendors for telling us what is plugging in, because a load list assembled on the day is a load list that is wrong.
What it holds up
Sound check and kitchen setup. It also finishes before tables go in, because cable is far easier to run across an empty floor.
What happens
Tables placed to the layout and squared to the tent, chairs set, linens on, then glassware, china, flatware, bars and buffet equipment staged where the caterer asked.
Who owns it
Us for delivery and placement, your caterer or planner for the final dress of the table. We set the room. They finish it.
What it holds up
The florist, who cannot set a centerpiece until tables are in final position, and the photographer, who wants the room finished before guests arrive.
What happens
Where the job calls for it, a crew member stays: sidewalls up or down as weather moves, heat adjusted after sunset, a table added when eight extra guests turn up.
Who owns it
Us where the job needs it, and we say so plainly when it does not. A forty guest afternoon under a settled sky rarely needs anyone standing by.
What it holds up
Nothing downstream. What it prevents is the other outcome: a problem at eight at night with nobody on site allowed to touch the equipment.
What happens
Reverse order. Tabletop and linens first, furniture next, then lighting and power, flooring, and the tent last. Stakes out, ballast loaded, and the lawn walked for anything left in it.
Who owns it
Us, on a day agreed with you in advance. Nobody wants a crew pulling stakes at midnight while the last guests are in the driveway.
What it holds up
Your property going back to normal, and on rented or municipal ground, your access agreement. Strike goes on the calendar when the install day does.
The division of labor
What we handle and what stays with you
Nothing goes wrong faster than two people each believing the other one had it. This is the split we work to, and we say it out loud on the first call.
| The task | TGIF | You or your vendors |
|---|---|---|
| Survey, measurement and layout | We walk it, measure it and draw it | Approve the drawing, tell us what is buried |
| Permits and paperwork | Drawings, specifications, certificates of insurance | Filing with the town, venue or HOA approval |
| Utility mark-out | We tell you where stakes are going | Arranging the mark-out, flagging private lines |
| Site access on install day | Trucks, crew and the install schedule | Gates open, cars moved, pets in, phone answered |
| Delivery, install and strike | All of it, our own equipment and crew | Agreeing both days in advance |
| Power distribution | Generator, cable, distribution and covers | The list of what is plugging in, from every vendor |
| Food, drink and staff | The equipment your caterer works from | The caterer, the bar staff and the menu |
| Flowers, music and photography | Stage, power, light and the space they work in | Booking them and giving them the layout |
| Valuables and personal items | An empty, clean site at strike | Clearing gifts, cards and anything you own |
The other people on site
Coordinating the caterer, the band, the florist and the venue
We are rarely the only company working your event, and we are almost always first in and last out. That puts part of everyone else's day in our hands.
The caterer
Three answers, early: where the back of house sits and how big it is, what the power situation is at that spot, and how far the walk is from there to the farthest table. A kitchen tent placed for our convenience instead of theirs adds a minute to every course. We would rather move it on the drawing.
The band, the DJ and the photographer
Stage position, power at the stage, and a load-in window that does not collide with our install. A band arriving while the top is still going on is a band standing in the driveway. We give them a time rather than a day, and we hold a circuit clear so the sound is not sharing with a warming oven.
The florist, the planner and the venue
Florists need tables in final position before they can start, so they follow us. Planners need the install and strike days to build the rest of the schedule. Venues and estates often set their own access hours and noise cutoffs, and the sequence gets built around those rather than discovered on the morning.
Why this goes smoothly
One company owns the equipment, the trucks and the crew
A schedule you control is a schedule you can keep. A schedule split across three vendors is a schedule nobody owns, and when it slips you get three explanations instead of a fix.
When the tent, the floor, the power and the tables all come off our racks, the sequence is an internal matter. If flooring runs long, the tent crew is already there and shifts to something else instead of standing down and rebooking. If the forecast turns on Thursday, sidewalls and heat are a call to the company that already has your date rather than a new order with a vendor who has never seen your lawn.
It also means one contact. You are not translating between a tent company and a rental house, and neither is telling you the other one measured wrong. The people who load the truck put it up, and the same crew comes back to take it down.
The family has done this since 1975, out of Holtsville, about an hour from Montauk and about an hour from the Nassau line. The rest of that story is on our about page, and the towns our trucks run to are in our service areas.
The harder versions
Multi-day builds, and what weather does to a schedule
When the build runs longer than a day
Past a certain size the stages stop fitting into one morning. A large clearspan with a sub-floor, a stage, drape and full lighting is a multi-day build: the tent goes up early in the week, flooring and power follow, and tabletop lands the day before so nothing sits out overnight in the dew.
That makes your property a work site for several days. Sprinklers off, the lawn out of use, equipment staged where the cars usually go. On rented or town ground it matters more, because the access window is fixed and everything has to land inside it.
The weather contingency
A contingency is not a forecast. It is a set of decisions made in advance: what gets added if rain is likely, what comes off if the wind picks up, who makes the call and by when.
In practice: sidewalls held in reserve rather than ordered on the Friday, heat planned for any date outside the warm months, flooring specified when the week has been wet, and a cut-off the day before when we decide together. Because we own the equipment, a late addition is usually possible. June and the fall weekends are tightest, and we say straight out when it is not.
Builds we have run
Corporate installs, start to finish
Tented corporate events across Nassau, Suffolk and the city, photographed once the sequence was finished and the site was handed over.
From Google reviews
What hosts say about the way we run a build
"I had a corporate event with TGIF, and I still can't get over how easy they made everything. Every detail needed to be perfect, and somehow the result was even better than perfect."
"TGIF handled my event in Suffolk County, and they absolutely exceeded my expectations. The setup was perfect, the event went beautifully, and the team did an excellent job."
"TGIF provided excellent communication and great service. Our party was a huge success, and everything was delivered at a great price. I will definitely use them again and recommend them to anyone planning an event."
Straight answers
What hosts ask about the production side
Next step
Send us the date, the address and roughly how many people
That is enough to book a walk-through and start the drawing. If you are planning a wedding, start at wedding rentals and we will pick the production side up from there.