Unfiltered With Brian McBroom: The Customer Sees the Event. Your Business Has to See Everything Else

The Customer Sees the Event. Your Business Has to See Everything Else

When an event goes well, nobody thinks about the rental operation behind it. The tables arrived, the lighting worked, the tent was ready and the equipment was where it needed to be, when it needed to be there. That's exactly how it should be.

But anyone who's spent time in the Party & Event rental industry knows how much work goes into making that experience look effortless.

I've been looking through the findings from our latest North American Party & Events Rental Benchmark Report, and one thing really stood out to me: the biggest challenge is often having the right equipment ready, in the right place, at the right time.

Availability Is About More Than Inventory

Equipment availability was the most commonly reported issue in our research, cited by 39% of respondents. You might assume this means businesses simply don't own enough inventory, but the utilization figures suggest something more complicated.

Most small and medium operators report utilization between 60% and 79%, while the majority of larger operators sit between 40% and 59%. This raises an interesting question: if equipment isn't being utilized at full capacity, why does availability remain such a common challenge?

Part of the answer may be that owning an item and being able to rent it aren't necessarily the same thing. Equipment might still be out with a customer, returned but awaiting inspection, waiting to be cleaned or repaired, or sitting in another location.

The challenge is how clearly teams can see what is genuinely available and ready to rent.

Turnaround Can Create Capacity

This becomes even more important when you look at turnaround. For both smaller and larger Party & Event rental operators, the most common turnaround time from off-rent to rent-ready is four to seven days.

In a sector where event dates can't simply be moved because equipment isn't ready, those days matter. Improving turnaround can potentially create additional capacity from the inventory a business already owns, while giving teams a clearer understanding of what will be available for upcoming bookings.

It also changes the customer conversation. Instead of relying on assumptions about availability, teams are better placed to give customers confident answers based on what is available, what's coming back and when equipment will actually be ready to rent again.

Operational Gaps Don't Stay Behind the Scenes

The research also highlights other areas where operational performance can affect the customer experience. 1 in 3 businesses reported pricing was a main customer complaint, while service response time and billing issues were each cited by 31%.

The financial impact is equally interesting. When we asked about unbilled or underbilled rentals, 37% of companies cited billing errors and 35% pointed to missing check-in or check-out records. A relatively small information gap during the rental journey can ultimately affect service, create additional administration or result in lost revenue further down the line.

That's why I think visibility needs to extend across the entire rental journey. Knowing what's available matters, but so does knowing what's happening in the field, what's been returned, what still needs attention and whether the right information has made its way through to billing.

Technology Investment Is Becoming Very Practical

The benchmark also gives us an interesting picture of where Party & Event rental businesses are heading next. A third of respondents are already implementing AI or automated scheduling, while 67% are actively exploring it. We're also seeing businesses investing in mobile workflows, predictive maintenance, logistics integration and stronger connections between rental and inventory systems.

What interests me isn't necessarily the technology itself, but the problems operators are trying to solve with it. Better scheduling, greater visibility into what's happening in the field, faster equipment turnaround and more accurate information all have a direct impact on the customer experience.

This connection matters because improving customer experience is the top priority for 41% of event rental businesses over the next 12 months. Technology has the greatest value when it helps teams deliver that experience more consistently.

What Happens When the Business Gets Busier?

For me, one of the most important questions Party & Event rental leaders can ask is what happens when the business adds more inventory, more events, more customers or another location.

Nearly half of the businesses in our research plan to switch or upgrade their rental management system within the next one to three years, with a quarter expecting to do so within the next 12 months. To me, that's a sign of an industry looking seriously at whether the systems and processes that got businesses this far will support where they want to go next.

The right processes, information and technology should make it easier for teams to understand what's happening across the operation and respond before an issue reaches the customer.

Because customers may only see the finished event, but your business needs to see everything that makes it possible.