Member Article

Gala Tent celebrates 15th birthday

It was 15 years ago today that the UK’s leading marquee and gazebo supplier, Gala Tent was officially registered as a business at Companies House. To celebrate the anniversary, the company, based in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, have been looking back over the last decade and a half.

The company was originally set up in September 1999 by Jason Mace, and lifetime friend Mark Thompson, and run from a back room of Jason’s father’s social club. By early 2000, the company took on their first recruit, Steve Biggs, who created the website and bespoke back office system for the stock, and moved into their first warehousing premises. Now

15 years later, Gala Tent has just hit another milestone of running their own in-house printing department, and are in their third warehouse which boasts a magnificent 53,000sq ft area, with plans of further extension. The company also has calculated a record financial growth in turnover every year, which shows no signs of abating any time soon. The marquee company are enjoying the growth spurts you typically associate with adolescence but pleasantly without the hormonal moodswings.

Highlights over the last 15 years include being the first UK eBay shop on the successful auction website in 2000, winning three Chamber of Commerce Business Awards in 2012 for Manufacturing Excellence, Innovation and Technology and Business Person of the Year, and establishing their first official overseas distributors in Ireland in late 2013.

But although reaching the 15th anniversary was an opportunity to reflect on the past, it has also been a chance for the company to look to the future, with plans now firmly in place to double in size over the next 5 years – in time for their 20th anniversary. Jason Mace said; “We are busy making plans for the future and we are still loving the journey of discovery that occurs in the events and marquee industry”.

To celebrate, Gala Tent held a modest staff party for the employees, and offered a 15% discount on orders over the anniversary period.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Michaela Stafford .