Event and special event moving
Event work is not measured in rooms. It is measured against a window: the hour the venue lets you in, the hour the doors open, and the hour everything has to be off the floor. The plan is built backward from those three times.
The window, not the day
A venue rarely gives you a date. It gives you a load-in window and a load-out window, and both are usually shorter than they sound because another event is on either side of yours. Get those times in writing from the venue before anything else is booked, along with which door you are allowed to use.
Load-out is where events go wrong. It happens at the end of a long day, often against a hard clock, sometimes with guests still leaving. Knowing in advance what goes out first and where the truck will be sitting is the difference between a strike that ends and one that runs long.
The venue makes the rules
Every building is different and none of them bend on event night. Ask whether there is a dock or whether everything comes through a service entrance and a freight elevator. Ask about height limits in the parking structure, floor protection required over ballroom carpet or a gym floor, whether carts are allowed on certain surfaces, and whether security requires a check-in list of names.
Most venues also require a certificate of insurance naming the venue and sometimes the property owner, filed before the day. Send us their requirements sheet early. Some venues additionally require their own labor for parts of the load-in, so ask them that question directly and tell us the answer.
Load order and staging
Pieces come off the truck in the order they get set, so they go on in the reverse of that. Staging, backdrops and anything that lives against a wall go in before the floor fills. Tables and seating follow. Small, fragile and finishing pieces come off last so they are not sitting in traffic while the heavy work is happening.
Crates, blankets and packing material have to go somewhere for the length of the event, and it cannot be a guest sightline. Sort out where the empties live during the show at the same time you sort out the load-in door, because that decision also determines how fast the strike can start.
Between one date and the next
Show properties, displays and staging pieces usually do not go back where they came from. They sit somewhere until the next date. Storage between events keeps them handled once at each end rather than shuffled through a garage, and repeat runs get easier when the same pieces are inventoried the same way each time.
For staged homes, the same logic applies in reverse: furniture in for the listing period, out after the closing, with the gap covered rather than improvised.
25+
Years moving Long Island
2
Counties covered, Suffolk and Nassau
7 days
A week we run crews
$0
Hidden fees on a quoted job
Licensed and insured. NYSDOT #42381, USDOT #4161235. Certificates of insurance provided for buildings that require one.
Book a walkthrough, keep the Starter Kit
Three professional-grade boxes, two rolls of tape and one of the moving blankets our crews use on real jobs. Yours to keep, for moves of two bedrooms and up. No purchase and no obligation.
See what is in the kit