A Yorkshire events company that managed to find a new forte during the lockdowns has bounced back and is now enjoying a demand for its services.
The English Marquee Company, based in Harrogate, caters for weddings, parties and corporate events and has quickly established itself in the UK Event scene over the past four years.
Like so many others in the wedding and events industries, they were hit hard by the pandemic with lockdowns and tight restrictions severely limiting what events they were able to deliver for more than a year.
The family-owned and operated events company, founded by brother and sister duo Sam and Tor Peters in 2017, sought advice from their accountants Armstrong Watson on how best they could manage a problem over which they had no control and no idea how long it would last and quickly diversified to cater for a new audience.
Sam and Tor diversified into marquee consultancy for the many venues looking for semi-permanent structures on long-term hire in order to provide outdoor seating in line with Government restrictions. They also made the move into glass orangeries, alongside their popular pole marquees, and proudly supported a local primary school by lending a marquee to allow all year groups to return before the end of term last year.
David Richmond, Accounting Partner at Armstrong Watson said:
Where they have been smart is that they have identified the fact that what they were doing was proving difficult with Covid and they’ve reacted. They’ve been very nimble to react quickly to what the market wanted not what they were selling.
They looked at what the market was requiring – pubs, restaurants and anyone who was in need of some form of outdoor covering – and catered for them.
They had to react quite quickly because their target audience temporarily disappeared. They identified a different customer base that required the same product.
Now that restrictions around social gatherings have eased, the English Marquee Company has returned to catering for weddings and specialist events with strong pent-up demand for their services alongside an on-going demand for semi-permanent structures.
Sam, Managing Director of the English Marquee Company, said:
Armstrong Watson have been fantastic. Their focused advice, webinars and technical support helped us to emerge from the pandemic in a strong position to reembark on our business strategy.
The last 18 months have both caused us to pause and then to accelerate some of our plans as we have diversified into a number of product lines alongside our traditional pole marquees. We have had a great reaction from our clients now that we are fully operational again and bookings are very strong for 2022.
