A free event still costs somebody money, and that is the bit that gets forgotten when you walk into a gala on a park field and nobody is collecting anything at the gate. The rides, the inflatables and the generator humming behind the stalls were all paid for in advance, by a council, a parish council or a committee of volunteers who spent most of the year raising it. DB Entertainment supplies a fair bit of that kit - more than 600 products across 68 categories, held in one warehouse near the M1 - so it seems worth explaining how the sums work from the organising side.
Who pays for a free community event
At the top end sit the local authorities. We work with Sheffield City Council, Doncaster Metropolitan Council and Rotherham's RMBC, along with the majority of major authorities and councils across the UK, and those organisations budget for public entertainment the way they budget for anything else: a line in the year's spend, approved before the summer programme is printed. At the smaller end sit parish councils, residents' associations and volunteer committees, and those are often the events where entry is free because a grants pot, a sponsor or last year's fete takings covered the hire.
One from our own diary: on 1 August 2017 we ran a free afternoon on Norfolk Park in Sheffield, midday until three, with nothing collected at the gate. That date is a long way back now, but the format hasn't aged a day, and the same fields around Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster, Barnsley, Worksop and Chesterfield fill up with the same sort of event every summer.
What kit works on a park field
The anchor piece is usually something that draws a queue on its own. A mobile climbing wall does that job well, and it suits council events for a practical reason too: it comes with trained staff, and the Armthorpe Parish Council and Community Centre put it better than we can. "The service we received was excellent, the climbing wall was a great addition to our event." Around the big draw go the cheaper crowd-pleasers, which is where the carnival games, giant garden games and the seaside sandpit setup come in for the under-eights.
Power is the thing people overlook. A park field rarely has a socket where you want one, so generators travel out with the kit, and an event coordinator from our side stays on site through the day to sort the inevitable: a tripped socket, a lost mallet, a queue that needs splitting in two.
What the budget decides
Free at the gate does not mean unlimited on the field, and anyone who has organised one will tell you the budget sets the shape of the event. Most committees buy one anchor piece and fill around it with smaller kit, and some keep the entry free by charging a pound or two per ride on the day to square the books. That is a perfectly sensible split and we can quote it either way. The paperwork is fixed whichever way the money runs: public liability insurance at £5 million, risk assessments and method statements supplied with the booking, and annual independent testing on every inflatable, which is the list most council procurement teams ask to see before they confirm a date.
Where all this happens
If you are on the visitor side of things, the free events rarely advertise far in advance: the borough council's own events listings, the parish noticeboard and the park's community pages are where the dates turn up first, and the bigger galas around Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster tend to be advertised from late spring.
The bulk of the free-event diary sits in South Yorkshire and the East Midlands, simply because that is where the warehouse is and the transport is short. Councils further afield book the same kit for their own events, and we deliver nationwide for larger bookings, so a gala in Hull and a community festival outside Leeds run on exactly the same stock. The event and funday range shows the spread of what goes out, and the fun fair rides page covers the bigger draws.
If you are on the committee that draws up the activities list each spring, the climbing wall hire page is a good place to start pricing the anchor piece, or get in touch with the office on 0114 345 0135 and we will quote against your date and your budget. The delivery page lists the towns we cover and what the transport costs look like.
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