A Guide To Choosing The Perfect Marquee Bar

A successful event is only as good as the satisfaction of your guests. Professional event planning takes this all into account, ensuring that there is entertainment and comfort during every single moment. Marquee bars are one such popular way of ensuring that every single person leaves your event happy and satisfied. Whether or not you’re serving alcohol is irrelevant. In fact, the most important thing is to keep everybody refreshed and comfortable whether it’s a blazing sun or freezing cold outside. Here at Carron Marquees, we have a wide range of marquee bars available to hire. This guide will help during the decision process to ensure you find the right option for your needs.

Why does your event need a bar?

If you expect your guests to spend an extended period of time at your event, you need to consider providing refreshments. Time is precious – especially in this modern world – and passing time anywhere that does not prioritise your comfort is something that people just won’t do these days. Hiring a bar is the perfect way to structure this process. It allows drinks and food to be served in a safe and organised way. It provides a specific location for refreshments to be picked up and returned to, helping to support the clean-up process at the end. And, it can create a socialising point where guests huddle together.

When to hire a bar?

You may think bars are only essential for events where alcohol is being served but that’s simply not true. They are an essential addition to many events, offering soft drinks, hot drinks and alcoholic beverages to guests. Some of the events we have hired marquee bars out for in the past include:

• Weddings.
• Conferences.
• Christmas parties.
• Birthday parties.
• Anniversary parties.
• Summer fetes.
• Kids parties.
• Sports events.
• Corporate events.

With a wide variety of marquee bars available on the market, there is a style ideally suited to your needs.

Do I need an alcohol license?

If you are planning on serving alcohol, you need to understand whether a legal license is needed. This is one of the most commonly asked questions we get when discussing bars and it’s understandable why. The information out there can be contradictory. This is largely because the type of event and how you plan to distribute the alcohol will determine whether this is needed.

If your event has:

• Any playing of recorded music.
• A performance of recorded music.

And…

• Has taken place for the consideration or with a view of making a profit.

You will need to have a license for it to be held. This largely minimises the chance of this being relevant for most events, including weddings and family birthday parties. However, if you are selling alcohol, either via a cash bar or as part of a ticket price. In this instance, you will need to apply for a Temporary Events Notice (TEN). This takes 10 working days, can be applied for online and costs £21.

Hiring Hospitality Staff

If you plan to have numerous bars and a large guest list, you may need to consider hiring bar/hospitality staff. You’ll want to aim to find experienced individuals who have worked at events such as yours before and understand the requirements. As a general rule, you should have 1 bar staff member for every 50 guests to ensure that people are served at a good speed and kept refreshed. If you are serving alcohol, you will need to make sure that all staff are over the age of 18 years old.