Party Equipment Rentals / Generator and Power Rentals
Generator and power rentals for events that cannot go dark
Power is the piece nobody thinks about until it is missing, and then it is the only thing anybody thinks about. We supply it, distribute it, and run the cable so a field, a parking lot or a back lawn behaves like a building.
Start here
The house has power. That is not the same as having enough
Generator and power rentals exist because an outdoor event asks a property to do something it was never wired for. A house is built for a family living in it. A parking lot is built for cars. Neither was designed around a caterer, a band, a heater and two hundred guests arriving on the same evening.
What usually happens is not a dramatic failure. It is a breaker in a basement nobody can find, tripping every time the coffee urns and the fryer run together, while the DJ wonders why the sound keeps cutting. Renting power takes that out of the evening entirely, and when it is right nobody at the event ever knows it was a question.
Signs the property will not carry it
Two or more of these on the same night and the honest answer is almost always to bring power rather than borrow it.
The load list
What actually draws power at an event
Written down, this list is almost always longer than people expect. That is the point of writing it down.
Catering and cooking
Hot boxes, warmers, convection and fryers pull hard and pull for hours. Ask your caterer what they are bringing, because cooking equipment is usually the heaviest thing on the list.
Climate control
Heaters and cooling units run continuously rather than in bursts, and guests notice first if they stop. Heating and climate control gets sized with the power, never after it.
Lighting
Tent, path, parking and back of house. The draw is modest and constant, but this is the system where losing it turns an inconvenience into a safety problem, so event lighting gets treated accordingly.
Band, DJ and sound
Not the biggest draw, but the fussiest. Audio wants clean, steady power on its own run, away from anything that cycles on and off. Ask the band for their requirements in writing.
Coffee and concession
Coffee carts, espresso, food trucks and concession stands. Each is small alone, they add up fast, and they all switch on inside the same ten minutes.
Phones and point of sale
Card readers, ticket scanners, a router, a charging table. Tiny draw, outsized consequences. If people pay at your event, this belongs on the list rather than in the gaps.
Restroom trailers
A restroom trailer needs power for lights, water and climate inside it, and it usually sits furthest from everything else. That makes it a cable question as much as a load one.
Everything nobody mentions
The photo booth. The florist's cooler. A projector. The blowers on the inflatables. Small, real, and the reason a list drawn up two weeks out beats one drawn up on the day.
Build the list
Load list builder
Tick everything that is running at your event. The panel tells you what that combination means for distribution, where the generator has to sit, what needs backing up, and how fuel and run time get planned. No figures, because figures come from the real equipment list.
Tap to add or remove. Everything here is relative language on purpose: the numbers come off your caterer's equipment list and the band's rider, and we work them out with you on the call.
Start ticking. Most events are surprised by how far down the list they get.
How it gets to the plug
Generators and distribution
A generator on its own is half a system. The other half is everything between it and the thing you wanted to switch on.
The generator
Sized to the load list with headroom, not to the last event that looked similar. Running a machine near its limit all night gets you a hot, loud, thirsty generator and an unhappy band.
Distribution
Power comes out of the generator in one place and the event needs it in six. A distribution panel splits it into separate protected runs, so the caterer tripping something does not take the lighting with it.
The runs
Separate cable to each area: kitchen, tent, stage, restrooms. Kept apart from the audio run, off the walking lines, and planned against the site map before anything is unrolled.
The last few feet
Where the cable meets the people. Ramps across paths, matting where a crowd crosses, and terminations placed where a caterer or a DJ can reach them without running their own extension across a doorway.
Cable, noise and distance
Where the generator sits is a guest experience decision
A generator has to be close enough that the cable run is sensible and far enough that nobody hears it during the speeches. Those two pull against each other, and the balance is different at every site. On an open field you can put real distance between the machine and the tent. On a tight village property or a city lot you cannot, so the answer becomes screening, orientation and a longer run bought deliberately.
Modern event generators are built to be quiet, and quiet is relative rather than absolute. What matters is where the exhaust points, what it stands behind, and whether it sits upwind of the people it is powering. We also keep it clear of parking and of where the caterer works, because both get busy at the wrong moment.
Then there is the cable itself. Once a crowd is walking over ground, every run becomes a trip question, so cable gets routed around walking lines where possible and ramped or matted where it cannot be. On a multi-vendor site this is worth agreeing before the trucks arrive, which is one of the things event production is for.
What we work out on site
We own the generators, the distribution and the cable, and the same crew places the tent, so the power plan and the site plan are one drawing rather than two.
The things that cannot stop
Redundancy, and what fuel really means for planning
Separate the critical
Some things are an inconvenience if they stop and some are the end of the event. Lighting, climate, audio and anything taking payment belong in the first group. Where an event genuinely cannot afford a pause, those come off the shared supply and onto their own.
Plan the failure
Redundancy is not only a second machine. It is knowing who notices, who has the number, and what gets switched off first to bring everything else back. That conversation takes five minutes at the quote and is impossible at ten at night.
Fuel is a schedule
Run time depends on the machine and how hard it is working, so it gets planned as a window rather than assumed. For a long day or a multi-day stand we agree in advance when refueling happens and how the truck reaches it without crossing your guests.
From Google reviews
What hosts say
"We rented our tent from TGIF for our backyard wedding, and it was one of the best decisions we made. We weren't sure a tent would work around our pool, but Mike reassured us that his team could make it happen. He was quick to answer every question, and the setup team was prompt and professional. Highly recommend!"
"TGIF handled my event in the Hamptons, and I needed everything to look elegant without becoming too expensive. They delivered exactly what I was looking for."
Straight answers
What planners ask about power
Talk to us
Send us the list and we will size it
Caterer, band, climate, lighting, restrooms, everything else. We have been powering Long Island events since 1975 and we own what we bring.