Wednesday, July 6, 2022

News: Platinum Jubilee sees marquee specialist's sales go through the roof

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Rotherham-based Marquee and Gazebo retailer Gala Tent posted record revenues for May after the country was gripped by planning street parties to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.

Founded in 1999, Gala Tent has grown to sell over 15,000 tents and marquees each year, along with around 100,000 event accessories and furniture products. It grew from a table top operation in Grimethorpe to a company with a turnover of £10m+ having moved into new 53,000 sq ft headquarters at Fairfield Park in Manvers in 2011.

After a bumper 2021 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions imposed on the hospitality industry and combined with the well-documented universal price increases, the board of Gala Tent might be forgiven for thinking the bubble had burst on their good fortunes. However, the demand for marquees, pop-up gazebos and party tents remain as high as ever, thanks to the street parties across the UK, and the company posted turnover of over £1.25m for May.

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Jason Mace, Gala Tent CEO, said: "We’ve intentionally bought more stock than ever before, as last year we were occasionally caught short by massive demand, and as a result we are seeing record revenues for this time of year. On top of the celebrations for the Queens Platinum Jubilee, there are hundreds of thousands of happy couples who have had to postpone their weddings throughout the pandemic who are now able to make real plans to get hitched.

“We have been hit by material cost and price increases like everybody else, and we are extremely fortunate that our products remain in high demand. Our workforce has seen wage increases to try to help with their burdens, and hopefully it will ease off sooner than later. For now, we will continue to press on and aim to drive even bigger growth. If we achieve it in the current climate, this could be our biggest achievement yet.”

The wider business has also recently expanded with the launch of Gala Education & Marketing Ltd (GEM). It was created as a result of the huge successes Gala Tent's marketing team has achieved over the course of the past few years after it stopped working with third party marketing agencies.

Jason said: “Back in 2016 and 2017, we were using a digital marketing agency to manage our website discoverability and paid advertising online, and while we saw some incredible successes with the revenue they generated and the traffic they brought in, they spent obscene amounts of our money to do it, and then took a slice of the pie themselves, so it was barely worth the effort. I thought there had to be a better way, so I set up an in-house team to do the work for us. However, they weren’t actually trained in marketing, but I knew they had it in them to gain the skills they needed, so that’s what they did.”

Gala Tent website

Images: Gala Tent

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