Party Equipment Rentals / Pipe and Drape Rentals
Pipe and drape rentals give a room the walls it never had
Pipe and drape rentals are the cheapest way to change the shape of a room. A few uprights, a crossbar and a run of fabric hide what you do not want seen, put a clean wall behind the people everyone is looking at, and cut one wide space into rooms that each do a job.
The system
Four parts, and the whole thing packs flat
| Part | What it does | What it decides |
|---|---|---|
| Uprights | Telescoping posts, so one set of hardware covers a low divider or a room-height wall. | How tall the wall finishes, and whether it reads as a screen or as architecture. |
| Bases | Weighted steel plates the uprights drop into, with nothing fixed to the building. | Stability, and how much floor the run eats at the feet. |
| Crossbars | Bars that span upright to upright and carry the fabric. They adjust in length. | How the run divides into bays, and how tightly the panels gather. |
| Drape panels | Fabric with a pocket sewn along the top that slides onto the crossbar. | Weight, opacity, color and fullness. The part guests actually see. |
Six jobs
What hosts actually rent drape for
Nearly every order is one of these six, and each wants a different height and fabric.
Behind a stage or head table
A clean field stops the eye wandering into whatever is back there. Order it with stage rentals and both get built together.
Hiding a catering or service area
Caterers need somewhere to stage plates and park hot boxes. Drape gives them that inside the tent, out of sight.
Dividing one big tent into rooms
One span holds cocktail hour and then dinner, but only if the dinner room stays unseen until you want it seen.
An entrance or a photo wall
Step-and-repeat, welcome and photo walls are the same hardware, dressed and lit differently.
Screening a loading area or a bad wall
Generators, dumpsters, a fence line. Drape fixes none of it. It stops it being part of your event.
Trade show and exhibit division
Backwalls and side rails repeated down an aisle, so every exhibitor gets the same footprint.
Pick the job, get the spec
Drape job picker
Choose the job. Each answer returns the height it wants, how the run is built to length, and what catches people out on site.
How tall
Well above standing height, so it still reads as background from the back row.
How the run is built
Wider than the stage on both sides, ends turned back, so no gap shows off center.
What to watch
Leave working depth behind it. A band, a photographer and cables live in that gap.
How tall
Above eye level and no higher. Full tent height here costs money and blocks air.
How the run is built
An L or a U into a tent corner, one bay left loose as a doorway for staff.
What to watch
Ask the caterer first. A service area built too small spills back into the room anyway.
How tall
As tall as the system goes under that roof, or the reveal stops being a reveal.
How the run is built
Straight across in repeated bays, panels overlapping so no light line shows.
What to watch
Decide who opens it and when. A divider is a cue as much as a wall.
How tall
High enough that a camera aimed at someone never catches the top edge.
How the run is built
Short and full. More fabric on the same crossbar keeps pleats deep and the surface matte.
What to watch
Give it floor space in front, or it becomes a place people stand with drinks.
How tall
Set from where guests stand, not from the object. Walk there and look.
How the run is built
Only as long as the sightline needs. These sit at the tent edge, so wind shapes it.
What to watch
Equipment needs clearance and a path in, and fabric stays off anything hot.
How tall
Two at once: a tall backwall behind each exhibitor, a low rail between neighbors.
How the run is built
As a repeating module. One booth width is set, then copied down the row.
What to watch
Bases eat floor. In a tight hall the plates decide whether an aisle works.
Height and length
A drape wall is measured twice
Height is a sightline question, not a taste question. Stand where guests will be, look at what you are hiding or framing, and it answers itself. Low runs work as dividers and booth rails. Mid runs sit above eye level and cover most service screens. Tall runs reach toward the roof, which is what a backdrop or a room division needs.
Length is built, not bought. The run divides into bays between uprights, and bays repeat until the wall ends. That is why drape can follow a curve, turn a corner or stop halfway across a room and return on itself. It is also why the figure on your quote is total run, and why a drape wall has no fixed size: it is a length you choose on the day.
Measure the run
We walk the length, mark where the wall starts and stops, and note what it has to clear.
Set the uprights
Bases go down along the line, then uprights go in and are set to height.
Hang and dress
Crossbars span, panels slide on, fullness is evened by hand, ends are turned or tied.
Fabric
Weight and opacity change what the wall does
The hardware is identical in every job above. What separates a run that disappears from one that holds the room is how much light gets through.
| Fabric | What light does | Best at |
|---|---|---|
| Sheer and light | Passes through. Shapes read faintly behind it, and the panel glows when anything is lit behind. | Softening an entrance, layering over a solid run, atmosphere rather than a barrier. |
| Mid weight | Mostly blocks, with a little bleed at the seams and along the floor. | Dividers, service screens and general backdrops. Takes color well from a light aimed at it. |
| Heavy and opaque | Blocks almost completely and absorbs rather than reflects, so the surface stays matte. | Backdrops that must read solid on camera, and anywhere a light line gives the trick away. |
Picking fabric on color alone is the usual mistake. A sheer panel with a service light burning behind it at dusk shows every crate you were hiding. Tell us what is on the other side, and the weight picks itself.
Outdoors and in wind
Freestanding is a strength indoors and a limit outside
Pipe and drape stands on its own weight. Nothing is bolted, screwed or driven into anything, which is how it goes into a rented hall or onto a finished floor with no damage and no permission beyond a yes.
Outside, the fabric that makes the wall work becomes a sail. A tall run catches wind the way a tent side does, and all that holds it is the weight at the feet. On an open lawn, a waterfront lot on the East End, or anywhere breeze funnels between buildings, that changes the plan. We add weight, tie back to whatever is solid, drop the height, or say the wall belongs inside the tent.
Drape and light together
Uplighting is what turns fabric into a wall of color
Drape is the best surface an event has to light: flat, vertical, and standing where you want people to look.
What light does to drape
Fixtures on the floor at the base of a run wash color up the fabric, and the pleats turn that wash into vertical bands of light and shadow. The same white drape reads one way at dinner and another for dancing. If you are planning event lighting rentals, say so when you order: where the fixtures sit decides where the bases go.
What drape does for everything else
A drape wall gives every other rented piece a background. Marquee letters, props and barrels read as deliberate in front of fabric and as clutter in front of a tent leg. So the wall goes up first and the event decor rentals get placed against it.
Browse and build your list
See the drape inventory
Drape
Pipe and drape hardware
What hosts say
Reviews from Long Island events
"Mike was incredible and guided me through the entire planning process for my wife's surprise 40th birthday party. He brought several important items to my attention that I would never have considered until it was too late. TGIF has a huge inventory with something for everyone. They helped make my wife's birthday incredibly special!"
"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."
Straight answers
Questions we get about drape
Next step
Tell us what you are trying to hide, frame or divide
One sentence is enough for us to size a run and quote it. We have rented out of our own warehouse in Holtsville since 1975, and drape rides the same truck as the tent and the floor.