Tent Rentals / Production Tent Rentals
Production tent rentals that keep base camp moving
Crew dining, wardrobe, hair and makeup, equipment cover, background holding and blackout, for film, television, commercial and photo shoots across Long Island and New York City. We install around your call sheet and strike when you say wrap.
What you are actually building
Base camp is a working village with a wrap time
Nobody under a production tent is celebrating. They are eating between setups, changing into a costume, sitting in a chair while somebody works on their face, or waiting on a radio call to come to set. Base camp is a workplace that exists for a day, a week or the length of a location, and then disappears without a trace of having been there.
That changes what a location manager needs from a tent company. Speed at both ends, because camp goes in before a call time and comes out on a schedule somebody else already locked. Quiet, because a mallet or a generator in the wrong place costs a take. Clean, because you are usually a guest on a street, in a lot, or on a property somebody had to talk a homeowner into. And flexibility on surface, because the ground under base camp is asphalt at least as often as it is grass.
We have been working on Long Island and in the city since 1975, and the fleet has grown from two tents to more than 1,000. When a production calls on short notice, the inventory is in our own warehouse in Holtsville and the crew coming out is on our payroll. Nobody is calling around trying to find you a tent.
The pieces of a camp
Six tents that do six different jobs
Most base camps are some combination of these. Which ones you need, and how many, comes down to the size of the call and how long you are on the location.
Crew dining and catering
The biggest span on the camp, because the whole call eats inside a window. It needs flooring people can carry a tray across, heat or air movement depending on the month, and enough light to read by without looking like a cafeteria.
Wardrobe
Private, walled on all sides, lit properly and laid out for racks and fitting space. This is the tent where the sidewall spec stops being about rain and starts being about nobody seeing in.
Hair, makeup and talent
Power at the stations, even light that does not fight with what the department is trying to do, and a floor that stays level under chairs. Usually the tent that wants climate control first.
Equipment, grip and staging
Cover for carts, cases and anything that should not sit out overnight. Clear span matters here, because a center pole in the middle of a staging area is a pole everybody walks around all week.
Background holding
A hundred people sitting for hours need seating, shade, weather cover and a door that is not the same door catering uses. Get holding wrong and the complaints reach the AD before lunch.
Blackout and interior cover
Opaque walls and roof for shooting night at noon, or a roof over a set that cannot get wet. Different fabric, different install, and worth flagging early because it is not a standard wall order.
Build the camp
Two questions, and the shape of your base camp
Pick the size of your call on the left and how long you are on the location on the right. The left answer sets the tents. The right answer sets everything that has to go with them.
Small unit: a tight camp
A commercial, a stills day or a second unit. One tent does double duty and the camp fits in a corner of the lot. Keep the footprint small and the install fast, because the value here is being gone again quickly.
Full crew: departments split up
Once every department has its own needs, the shared tent stops working. Wardrobe wants privacy, makeup wants power and light, and catering wants the whole call seated at once rather than in shifts.
Crew plus background: a second camp
Background holding is its own village and it is better planned apart from crew. Separate entrance, separate catering flow, separate restrooms. Plan the walking route between holding and set before you plan the tents.
One day: in and out
Everything gets planned around the load in window and the strike. Portable power, minimal flooring, restrooms delivered and collected on the same clock as the tents. The whole camp is designed to leave no reason for anyone to come back.
Several days: camp settles in
Now the ground under the tents starts to matter. Flooring goes down where people walk the same line every day, power gets distributed properly instead of run on the fly, and restrooms get serviced on a schedule rather than hoped about.
A run of weeks: treat it as a build
At this length camp is a small site with a neighborhood around it. Anchoring is specified for the whole window rather than the first forecast, the surface underneath gets protected, and somebody from our crew is checking the structures through the run.
The rest of the camp
Everything under the canvas that is not canvas
A tent on its own is a roof. What makes base camp work is the power, the plumbing and the walls, and all of it comes off the same trucks on the same schedule.
Power
Makeup stations, catering, chargers, heat and light all land on the same plan, and the placement matters as much as the size. A generator upwind of dining or within earshot of set is a problem you only make once.
Restrooms
Counted against the real call sheet, not the crew list, and split so background is not queueing behind department heads. Servicing gets scheduled around shooting rather than dropped in the middle of a take.
Walls, blackout, doors and weights
Solid walls, clear panels, opaque blackout, zip doors, cable ramps, weights and ballast. The accessory order is where a production camp really differs from a party, so we go through it line by line.
Flooring, heating and cooling come out of the same warehouse too. On a shoot they get specified by department rather than by square footage, because makeup and wardrobe want a stable temperature and dining mostly wants a floor that survives a week of boots.
Where camp actually goes
Streets, lots, piers and parking structures
Productions rarely get a nice flat field. Most of our camp work goes down on surfaces that were built for cars, and the surface decides the install.
| Where the camp sits | What it changes about the install |
|---|---|
| Closed street or block | No staking at all. Weighted structures, a footprint measured against the permit rather than the curb, and a load in that fits the window the city gave you. Sidewalk and driveway access stays open throughout. |
| Parking lot or hardstand | Ballast, and a layout that keeps fire lanes and drive aisles clear. The easiest surface to work on and the one where most base camps end up. |
| Deck, terrace or parking structure | Load limits come first and everything else follows. Equipment goes up in pieces a person can carry, and the anchoring plan gets agreed with the building before a truck is booked. |
| Pier or waterfront apron | Open water means wind with nothing in front of it, so the structure and the ballast get specified heavier than the same footprint would need inland. |
| Field, park or private property | Staking is back on the table, and so is soft ground. Spring and after rain we plan for matting and vehicle routes, because the thing that ruins a lawn is the truck, not the tent. |
City locations are their own discipline: tighter windows, tighter footprints, and a block that has to keep functioning around you. We run that work regularly out of the same warehouse. See how we work in New York City.
How we behave on a location
Fast in, quiet through, gone by morning
Turnaround is the part productions ask about first. We keep our own trucks and our own crew, which is the only honest reason a tent company can move quickly: nothing in the chain is waiting on a subcontractor to call back. Tell us the dates when you have them and we will tell you plainly what we can do, including when the answer is that the camp you want is bigger than the window you have.
Working quiet is a habit, not a promise. Crews know what a radio call means, that a hammer stops when a bell rings, and that a generator gets placed by where the sound department is standing rather than by where it is convenient to park. If we are still installing while you are rolling, we work around you or we wait.
Then there is the neighborhood, which is the location manager's real problem long after the tents come down. Driveways stay clear. Sidewalks stay walkable. Ballast does not sit on somebody's lawn because it was easier than carrying it further. At strike we sweep the surface and leave the block the way we found it, because you are the one who has to go back and ask for that street again next season.
Company moves get planned as one job, not two. If you are striking one location in the morning and standing up in another that afternoon, say so on the first call so the equipment and the crew are scheduled against both.
Against the call sheet
Where we show up in your schedule
Six points of contact between our work and yours. Everything else we keep out of your way.
| Stage | What we are doing |
|---|---|
| Scout | We walk the location with you, measure the usable ground, and say early if the camp you have drawn does not fit the space you have been given. |
| Tech survey | Surface, anchoring method, access route, power placement and the walking route between camp and set all get settled while there is still time to change them. |
| Prep and load in | Tents, floor, walls, power and restrooms go in against your window, usually the day before a call, at night where the location demands it. |
| Shoot days | We are reachable and largely invisible. Weather changes, a wall gets added, a tent gets moved, a heater gets swapped, without anyone chasing a dispatcher. |
| Company move | Strike at one location and install at the next planned as a single scheduled job so the crew and the equipment are not double booked against you. |
| Wrap and strike | Out on the agreed clock, surface swept, ballast and cable ramps collected, nothing left behind for the location manager to answer for. |
If the job reaches past tents into staging, power distribution, flooring and crowd management as one package, that is our event production work, and it comes from the same crew.
4.9 stars across 138 Google reviews
What clients say about working with Mike
"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!"
"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 location managers ask us
Send the dates
Give us the location and the call, and we will size the camp
Send the address, the surface, the shoot dates and the head count. We will come out on a scout, tell you what the ground will take, and put a camp on paper before you commit to it.