Small business: Jacinda Ardern’s wedding and basking in big events - how Flagship Events battled past Covid

Dame Jacinda Ardern and Clarke Gayford pictured at their wedding. Photo / Felicity Jean Photography

As Covid-19 sent the country and many businesses to a screeching standstill, Hawkes Bay-based Flagship Events was forced into survival mode to keep itself afloat. But today, the premium marquee hire business is coming to the end of another busy summer season as it basks in the return of big events.

Founder Ted Thorp talks to the Herald about how his company battled through Covid and his plans for growth in the future.

What is Flagship Events?

Flagship Events is a premium event rental company specialising in the exclusive rental of the iconic Sperry tents in New Zealand.

What motivated you to start the business?

After living overseas for six years with a career in the superyacht and hospitality industry, I was motivated to move home to New Zealand, and more specifically to the Hawkes Bay. I noticed there was a gap in the market for premium marquee options for events so went on a quest to find an alternative marquee option to the standard white PVC tents that had been the staple event tent for as long as I knew.

After stumbling across the Sperry tent it just so happened that the boat I was working on was sailing right past the doorstep of the creators of the Sperry tent in Wareham, Massachusetts. I jumped off the boat and went and met the Sperry brothers, Tim and Matt, and was blown away by their story, quality of craftsmanship and just their general outlook on life.

We shared very similar values - a love of the outdoors, sailing, adventure and building things. After that first meeting, I knew this was the tent company I wanted to partner with and bring back to our shores.

What are some of the notable events you have been hired for?

We have done events for the New Zealand polo open. Car launches for the likes of Range Rover and BMW. Christmas parties for big corporate clients and companies. Weddings for Dame Jacinda Ardern and Clarke Gayford, Peter and Lucinda Burling and many more high-profile couples.

How big is your team?

This summer season we have 10 full-time staff and a handful of casuals that jump in on busy weekends. In the winter the staff numbers reduce to five full-time staff members.

We have arranged an agreement with the Sperry tent providers in the Northern Hemisphere so in the last couple of seasons we have brought staff over from the United States, United Kingdom and even Guernsey. It works well, because it’s such a seasonal business it’s hard to retain staff over the winter months when there are not many events going on. We can take the staff off their hands for the six months of winter and then return them as the season back home starts to pick up again.

It’s great for us as we get experienced guys from the get-go who know exactly the process of setting up Sperry tents. It’s also great for the guys that come over too because they get to see and experience the whole country over six months.

How did Covid-19 impact the business?

Events came to a complete standstill for two years so we had to adapt. We scaled back staff to just the directors which was myself and my brother-in-law Patch at the time. We shut down our Central Otago branch and based ourselves purely out of our Hastings HQ. Patch is a qualified builder so we used our shed in Hastings and his skills to build a tiny home that we could sell to keep the business afloat.

We also had to come up with smaller tent packages to suit events with restrictions on guest numbers. Basically, we went into survival mode and we learned a lot from that period.

Founder of Flagship Events Ted Thorp (left) with his wife Gin.

How did Cyclone Gabrielle impact you last year?

We had a really busy season during the summer of the cyclone just because that was the first real season with no restrictions in place from Covid. We had a big backlog of events booked in and there were also a lot of people just wanting to book events again after such a long stand-down period.

It was a logistical nightmare co-ordinating all the events we had that summer while navigating what was a wild summer of weather. There were many sleepless nights with tents up all over the country while the country was getting battered by bad weather.

We had a few bookings in Hawkes Bay that had to be canceled due to the cyclone but all in all, we were pretty lucky and weren’t impacted too badly financially from the cyclone, it was more the logistics and increased wear and tear on the tents and staff that paid a toll.

Have you seen a return to ‘normal’ and what is the outlook for the events industry in 2024?

This summer season 2023/2024 has been great. It’s felt like finally we have had a season where things have gone to plan and it’s been busy and also really enjoyable. The forecast for next season at this stage is still hard to gauge just yet but we are noticing the impact the economy is having on people’s spending.

We are still seeing big extravagant tent bookings coming in as well as much smaller bookings. We’ve seen a reduction in bookings for next season for the standard bread and butter mid-range tents. Hopefully, this will pick up over the coming months but it’s a clear reflection of the ‘squeezed middle’ that you hear so much about on the news.

How have you funded the business to date?

All self-funded to date mainly through financing from the bank.

What are your growth plans for the future?

Our main growth plan for 2024 is to open a branch in Auckland to make our tents and hire items far more accessible to the upper North Island. At the moment we have to charge travel and accommodation for bookings outside of Hawkes Bay so by opening an Auckland branch we can provide our products and services for a much more competitive price and hopefully open us up to a much larger market.

We have a base in Christchurch where we service the South Island so another key focus this year is to increase our presence and offering in the South Island and work towards being a well-recognised brand for high-end event rental in New Zealand.

Flagship Events has done several high-profile weddings.

What have been your biggest challenges in business?

Other than Covid and weather, the biggest challenge for me has been trying to juggle the business which is so demanding through the summer months with spending time with my wife and three kids. I’m often away for weeks at a time and my wife is at home in the trenches with the kids.

I am putting things in place so that hopefully this will change in the coming years and I can prioritise my family time over work and not the other way around.

What have been your highlights in business so far?

Sounds cheesy but pulling off an amazing wedding or event for a client. You are often in contact with clients for one to two years before the event date and the correspondence is pretty frequent, meticulously planning every little detail. So when it’s all done there is great relief and overwhelming satisfaction when everything exceeds expectations. That never grows old.

What’s your advice for other budding entrepreneurs?

Give it a crack, 100 per cent of ideas or opportunities will fail if you don’t take the leap. If you have an idea or a business opportunity in a space that you genuinely enjoy and if it feels right then give it a go. That’s exactly what I did when I left the Sperry yard in 2015.