The question we get most often is not how much an inflatable or a photo booth costs, but what fits a particular event. And the answer almost never depends on the product: it depends on the type of event. A reaction game that draws a crowd at a trade fair stand can stand empty at a gala dinner, and a cocktail station that works at a company party gets in the way at a festival with five thousand people walking past.
Three variables decide it. The first is how much time each guest can give it: forty seconds at a trade fair, up to ten minutes at a wedding, and hours of coming and going at a town festival. The second is whether the audience is standing, seated or on the move, because that decides whether the activity has to be fast and visible or can ask for concentration. The third is the real space available, which is almost always smaller than the floor plan once you subtract walkways, fire exits and the catering area.
With those three answers the list shortens by itself. Corporate events with a tight agenda call for short, repeatable activities placed in the breaks. Private celebrations and weddings call for the ones that create a photo and a memory. Festivals, town festivals and shopping centres call for the ones that build a queue and can take a constant flow of people for hours without exhausting the staff or breaking the equipment.
Then there is the calendar, which in this business weighs as much as the budget. May and June concentrate company parties and family days; September and October, trade fairs and conventions; December, Christmas dinners and New Year's Eve. In those weeks the good equipment is booked two or three months ahead, so the difference between getting what you wanted and getting what was left is usually decided long before anything is signed.
Barcelona as a base, all of Spain as our range
Our warehouse is in Barcelona and everything comes out of it: the lorries, the equipment and the set-up crew. That means we can solve last-minute changes the same day within the metropolitan area, and that across the rest of Catalonia transport is rarely the figure that unbalances a quote. We work regularly at venues such as Fira de Barcelona, coastal hotels, industrial estates and village squares, which are very different settings, each with its own permits.
Outside Catalonia we set up all over Spain, with crews that travel and with transport always itemised in the quote so you can see what is rental and what is logistics. For large events outside the province we usually suggest a technical site visit beforehand or, at the very least, a call with the venue manager: half an hour of conversation prevents almost every problem that shows up on set-up day.
