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Mission statement
To provide high quality marquees and accessories for sale at affordable prices to meet the needs of trade and retail customers.
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Britain’s first and largest supplier of marquees and pop up gazebo structures, Gala Tent Ltd, came into being when the company's founder and Managing Director, Jason Mace, was working behind the bar of his parents Working Men’s Club. The year was 1999 and Jason had a moment of inspiration when in July of that year he was phoning local companies in the yellow pages in an attempt to hire a marquee for the club's millennium celebrations.
At the time the millennium celebrations were the highest profile media event across the press and television. The tabloid papers were reporting tales of massive increases in costs for any organised event on the millennium eve - wages for staff would be £50 per hr, pubs and clubs would be charging extortionate admission fees, and beer would be £10 a pint. Every call that Jason made to local marquee companies resulted in the same answer. The conversation went something like this:-
Jason “do you have a 20ft x 10ft marquee for hire?”
Marquee Company “Is your event for the millennium?”
Jason “Yes”
Marquee Company “No we are sold out” or “No we are completely booked up” sorry!
It became clear that most people had decided to stay at home for the millennium celebrations and were planning family parties, including a lot of street parties. That day Gala Tent was born when Jason sourced a UK supplier who had just the item for which he was searching.
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| The Business Plan |
Jason didn’t have much money to invest in setting up a business; his net worth was around £2,000, most of which was credit on a visa credit card. Using this resource he purchased a stock of basic, easy to erect marquees from a local importer. Very quickly this was sold and doubled his investment he was now worth £4,000. Seeing the huge potential, Jason invested the entire £4,000 in more stock. He repeated this until he had reached £10,000 but at this point he had exhausted the entire UK stock. The only option left to keep this fledgling business going was for Jason to import directly from China but the investment was £23,500 and Jason had only £10,000. He struck a deal with the supplier to pay £10,000 deposit in advance, and the balance upon delivery. At this point Jason was counting on his ability to pre sell the stock and have all the money ready to pay the supplier in advance of the stock landing in the UK. Logistically things looked good, the lead time was around 8-10 weeks and if all went well it would be just in time for the millennium.
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| The Marketing Plan |
| In the 90’s there was a real interest in free ad papers, just about everyone had bought or sold items from them. It worked in the same way as online auctions do today. Because Jason had no budget for advertising a “free ad” seemed to be the best and only place to start. The advertisement read something like this:
“20ft x 10ft Marquee For Sale
Ideal for Millennium Celebrations, Birthdays, Anniversaries, Bonfire, BBQ etc, comes complete with steel poles, canopy, full set of sidewalls, pegs, guide ropes and instruction manual.£100”
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As you can see, the advertisement is not too commercial, in fact it looks more like Jason could be an individual selling a used marquee and the price is rounded up to £100. Had the ad been priced at £99.99 it would have looked much more like a commercial advertisement and received a lower level of response, not only that, the paper may have charged to place the ad. However, he got it just right and the phone never stopped ringing. Jason then repeated this format in free ad papers across South Yorkshire, as well as taking the same style private ads in local circulation papers. Read the press release by clicking here
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| The Office |
When the business started, Jason’s office was a folding paste table sat in the middle of the room in his father's club. Because it was an active social club Jason had to set up his office in the morning and dismantled in the evening. On the table was a presentation of information on the marquee for sale, print offs of pictures, scanned and laminated. Jason didn’t own a digital camera at that time they were beyond most peoples pockets, neither did he own or know how to operate a computer. Fortunately, his big sister Lisa Mace, who is very creative and had a computer, agreed to print some flyers and point of sale material for his paste table. Jason’s humble set up actually made a substantial amount of money and sales conversion rates were around 98%. The club telephone number was used for incoming sales calls as free ad papers didn’t allow a mobile numbers at the time, so Jason's would have a product description, along with directions to the club from the M1 and A1, printed and pinned to the wall near the phone so that if he was not working at the bar someone else could take a sales call on his behalf. In return Jason would buy them a drink by way of thanks.
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| The First National Marquee Mail Order Company |
Initially Jason was just concentrating on local business around South Yorkshire; the majority of purchases were collections with just a few deliveries but he knew that setting up a delivery service would be a huge benefit. Then, out of the blue, Jason's father Tony Mace received a phone call from Bob Pickburn, a life long family friend who was exhibiting Krypton Tuners at an outdoor trade show and it looked like rain! So, knowing that Jason had a little marquee business he asked Tony if Jason could deliver one on a next day service. Out came the yellow pages again to see if a local carrier would be able to offer this service. The price was quoted at around £34, Krypton agreed to pay the cost and the deal was done. The carrier collected the marquee that day and it was delivered on time the following day. And, as unpredictable as the British weather is, the heavens opened and the marquee saved the day. Jason commented at the time that he didn’t realise that such a large parcel could be delivered on a next day service to the other side of the country. Then another inspirational moment, Jason's mobile phone broke down, he called the phone company and it was duly collected. Intrigued, Jason started a conversation with the man from the carrier and began to learn about freight transport. They worked from hubs and central distributions, which is how they manage to produce such an amazing next day service. Jason asked the driver if he could pass his business card on to their sales department and for them to contact him about a possible contract. The next day a salesman called and arrange to meet, Jason explained the business model delivering Marquees throughout the UK on a next day service. Jason shared his sales forecast with the courier salesman so that he could quote as accurately as possible. Eventually they agreed a 30 day account and £6 per parcel delivered anywhere in the UK mainland on a next day service. Armed with this parcel rate and national presence the sales soared, and Gala Tent became the first marquee mail order company, with the mission statement “Why Hire When You Can Buy For Less” which is still used today.
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| Partnership |
Eventually Jason had raised the money required to pay his supplier upon the delivery of the container. Business went from strength to strength and Mark Thompson - Jason's Brother-in-law joined and bought 50% of the new concept company for £10,000 (now his share is valued at £7m), Mark proves to be a valuable asset to the company and business booms. In 2000 and with a strong database of clients and resellers it became clear that they also needed lighting, heating, flooring and furniture as well as more sizes of marquees and gazebos. It was time to expand the range; so more sizes and more products were introduced. At the same time the Gala Tent business grew, the club trade declined and it made good commercial sense for Gala Tent to buy the club and convert it into warehousing and offices. The property, owned by Jason’s parents Jenny and Tony Mace was valued at £150,000 and had an outstanding business loan on the property of £80,000, the remaining funds after legal costs and bank charges were around £67,000. In order to seal this deal, Jenny and Tony became Jason & Marks “Dragon” investors and the remaining monies were ploughed back in to company.
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| The First Import & Retail Company |
At this time the market was supplied by companies who imported products to supply Wholesalers, the Wholesalers then supplied the Retailers. If you look at it in detail, the Importer makes 25% margin, then the Wholesaler adds a further 25% margin, the Retailer then adds 50% margin resulting in a compounded 134% margin. So Jason knew if he could import and retail cutting out the middle men he could comfortably undercut all the competition if he needed to. However, what Jason did was use the margin to develop a much higher quality product to introduce to the market. This would prove to be powerful business model. A product of higher quality, more innovative, competitively priced, a product suitable for the commercial and retail market..... The 'Gala Tent'
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| Online Presence |
| In 2000 Gala Tent needed an online presence to extend its reach and support its sales efforts and this led to the recruitment of computer whizz kid Steve Biggs. Steve created a completely unique online shop and back office management system with which to run the company, all of the work was bespoke because it was not possible to buy an off the shelf software package that was capable of running the very unusual business model that had been created. With Steve on board Gala Tent became pioneers of online trading and it was one of the very first businesses in the north to have a fully transactional ecommerce website. Steve’s background was design, engineering drawing and computer programming and capitalising on his skills, the Gala Tent product range evolved quickly, responding to client feedback and making them the most practical and user friendly structures in today’s market. Ecommerce Revolution Surf’s up, riding the Internet wave |
| Creating a New Business Concept |
| Credit card payments were available at this time and online trade was growing, however, Jason spotted an untapped market for marquee hire. Not wanting to hire them himself, Jason calculated that it was possible to start a business hiring the steel pole entry level Gala Tents with little investment and a quick return. The critical factor was finance, Jason was highly aware that cash flow was an issue for any business start up and so he created a way around the problem. The advertising campaign went something like this:
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“Start Your Own Marquee Hire Business”
Buy Now Pay Nothing for 12 months. Think about it, you buy your stock of marquees, rent them out over the next 12 months make all your money back then pay for them, win – win. And it worked! Gala Tent helped to create dozens more business all over Britain and a handful overseas.
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Read a few case studies from Gala clients by clicking here.
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