2011 Commencements
This year we are contracted with ten Colleges, Universities and Military facilities to deliver equipment for graduations and commencements.  They begin in the first weekend of  May and end in July.  For these events, Event Central will provide everything from tents/stage covers, sound systems, and handicap-accessible facilities to trailer-mounted bleachers, chairs and video platforms.

The first job of the  year
Over  the past 2 days, we have loaded materials for the Tuesday setup of the first event of the season, with take down scheduled for Saturday, starting at 3PM, for completion within 24 hours so we can get ready for the next commitment.  For this particular college,the timing is such that we have  joined forces with Special Events Tent and Party Rental of Bangor, PA.  The job will require 4 trailers and 3 trucks of materials and up to 22 people to perform the full setup and take down within the contracted time period. Skilled labor will be a combination of our best technicians, general labor, and a large crew of temporary labor to complete the job.

The requirement
The graduation calls for us to seat 6500 at two locations on campus -
- Outside on the Quad with white chairs, to include grass covering, bleachers, stage cover, sound,  ADA compliant access to main stage, 2 – 20 x 20 seating areas, and grass cover for the entire route of the processional
- Inside the athletic facility with protective cover for the gym floor, brown chairs and a sound system

The university provides us with a 4 ft School Logod banner  to be secured to the apex of the stage cover during assembly.  The rows of chairs and aisles are made perfectly straight by laying out over 25,000 feet of string lines on both sites.

To protect the wet spring grasses from damage, the grass is covered with several thousand SF of Event Deck turf cover.

Two trailer mounted foldout Speedy Bleacher trailers are brought in for additional seating. Each trailer is 45 Ft long, and folds out to 9 rows for 270 seats

Two 20 x 20 ADA-compliant platforms using Granite Signaturestage system are installed on both sides of the student seating.  They include 4′ ramps and handrails, all installed on a variable sloped area and then finished off with black skirting.

In these pictures, Butch Ruggiero’s crew (blue shirts) finish the turf cover, and start laying out the stage.

College and University rentals make up over 20% of our business mix.  Our first call to provide graduation rentals came 3 years into the business (1991) when we were asked if we could replace the incumbent service who could not provide  the quality and timing the school was looking for.  Little did we know that was the beginning of one of the most important segments of our service offerings.