Tent FAQs

• Festival Tent: Festival Tents feature high, swooping peaks and tensioned fabric that provides a tight, clean look. Festival tent center poles are suspended on cross cables which allow an absence of poles in the tent center. Festival tents are great for parties, concerts, school events, and corporate activities.
• Frame Tent: Frame tents are the traditional tent style for parties. Widths vary from 10’ to 40’ with lengths expanding to fit the event needs and space requirements. There are no center poles in frame-style tents, and the frame is sturdy enough to support light-weight accessories (like lights, fans, and décor).
• Structure Tent: Structure tents are engineered style tents suitable for weddings, celebrations, and all events. Structure tents are much stronger than frame or festival style tents and can handle more weight for hanging accessories like lights, audio/video equipment, and décor. 

The number one question when planning an outdoor tent event is; How big of a tent do I need?  In order to judge your budget and space requirements, you have to know what size tent you will require.  Of course, Northwest Tents &Events has an experienced event coordinator to do this for you, but if you want to calculate your needs yourself here are some guidelines:

1. Guest Count - If everybody's going to be seated at 60" round tables (this is the round table size that fits best in tents), you need 100 square feet per 8 guests. If you're seating them at long tables, you need 80 square feet per 8 guests. Example: 150 guests, divided by 8, comes to 18.75 round tables (if you don't get a whole number, round up). 19 x 100 = 1900 square feet.
2. Head Table - Take the number of people you want to sit at the head table (including the bride and groom if you are having a wedding), and divide by 4. That's the number of 8' tables you will need to form the head table. Allow for 100 square feet per head table. Example: 12 person bridal party, divided by 4, is 3, 8' tables. Add 300 square feet to your tent size to accommodate for this.
3. Buffet - Allow 100 square feet for each 8' buffet table. Usually your caterer will be the one to tell you how many buffet tables you need.To save square footage, you can always place the buffet on the dance floor and remove it after everyone is done eating.
4. Will you need a Cake table, gift table, drink area, or DJ table?  Add 100 square feet for each additional table.
5. Other items- Staging and dance floor. Both of these are going to take up real estate in your tent. For staging and dance floors especially, you need more than the actual size of these items, since nobody wants to sit two feet away from the stage. For Staging: Plan on using 16 sq. ft. per band member with a minimum of 64 sq. ft.  For dance floors: Take the number of guests and multiply by 2.5.  This will give you the square footage required for a dance floor.

Total square footage: Add up steps 1-5 and you will have the approximate square footage you need.

This number is the bare minimum square footage you need. If you get a tent smaller than this, you're going to be banging elbows all night.

Now that you know your square footage, all you have to do is match it up to the appropriate tent size. Remember, you can't go below the number you came up with. If you are right on the border, always go up. Here's a list of some of the most common tent sizes:

Tent Size

Square Footage

20x20                  400 sq ft

20x30                  600 sq ft

20x40                  800 sq ft

30x30                  900 sq ft

30x40                  1200 sq ft

30x45                  1350 sq ft

40x40                  1600 sq ft

30x60                  1800 sq ft

30x90                  2700 sq ft

40x80                  3200 sq ft

One other thing to consider when you are planning the size of the area that you want to place your tent in, is that pole tents require an additional 5-10 feet on all sides to accommodate for the stakes.  So if you are mapping out the area where you want to place your tent, be sure to add an extra 10-20 feet on the width and on the length to allow for the stakes. 

Northwest Tents & Events will do all this for you if you do not want to do this for yourself.  Call us and let us plan your event for you 847-975-1348.

Contact Us

If your party is on a weekend, we generally set up 1-2 days before your event depending on the start and end time of your event, type of event, and other scheduled deliveries.  There are many factors that determine our actual set up and take down schedule each week.  Generally we take down tents the day after the event.  We work to make times and dates as convenient as possible.  We strive to be flexible and to accommodate our customer’s requests. 

No. Cooking under a tent is a fire hazard, and will damage the tent.

In addition to allowing for area around the tent, you also need to consider things above the tent such as trees and utility lines. Speaking of utilities, you should call 811 JULIE to have the area of the tent flagged for utilities before installing the tent.  This ensures we do not hit any underground utilities when driving stakes into the ground. Also all sprinkler, low voltage pool lines, etc need to also be marked. Northwest Tents & Event is not responsible for any damage done to unmarked utilities. 

Tents are not permanent structures. Therefore, under extreme weather conditions, they may need to be evacuated to ensure the safety of all your guests.  

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1. Northwest Tents & Event follows the tent manufacturer recommendations and safety guidelines when it comes to tent staking, set up, and installation.  Once installed, do not adjust tent components in any way.
2. If you notice any changes to the tent structure such as sides flapping, tops sagging, straps loose, etc., notify Northwest Tents & Events immediately so the tent can be re-secured.
3. In the event the tent is damaged in a storm call Northwest Tents & Events to protect personal property in and around the tent.