The safety equipment side of DB Entertainment grew faster in the covid period than in the twenty-one years before it, and most of it has stayed in the fleet because it turned out to be useful long after the 2m signs came down. This post went up in November 2020, part-way through that expansion, and it walks through the range as it stands: fencing, barriers, weights and the hand sanitiser stations that started it all.
Marking a boundary
The simplest item is the safety fencing: a 50m run of bright orange plastic mesh supplied with 30 metal stakes, from £20 plus VAT. It gives you a clear, visible line around a restricted area, a temporary route or a build zone on grass, and because the mesh is lighter than rigid fencing it goes up and comes down in minutes. The limit is the ground - the stakes need something to bite into, so on hard standing, or anywhere a crowd will lean on the line, Heras temporary fencing or the interlocking metal barriers are the better call. Heras runs take a matching vehicle access gate set where cars and vans need through.
Controlling a crowd or a queue
The metal crowd control barriers are 2.3m long, 1.1m high and 14kg a panel, galvanised steel with hook-and-eye fittings that interlock end to end into a continuous run. They're free-standing, so nothing gets drilled, day hire starts from £10 a panel and long-term rates drop to around £3 a week. For indoor and lighter-duty routing there are the tensa belt barriers and road cones, and the tensa barriers are the item that started this side of the business, with the first big order of more than 100 panels going out in June 2020 to build a covid-secure testing area. They've been going out steadily ever since.
Anchoring structures
Marquees are the other half of the expansion. We now install and manage large marquees as well as hire them out, and through 2020 they went up as outdoor staff areas, testing spaces and overflow storage for businesses that had to keep operating with safe distances inside. Anything that can't be pegged down needs ballast, and the 500kg concrete marquee weights do that without a hole in the tarmac: 805mm by 445mm by 655mm a block, fork pockets in the base so a forklift can shift them, and a lifting anchor cast into the top, from £15 a block for a fortnight. Where the job is stopping vehicles, the 2.5m concrete jersey barrier weighs 1,300kg, and once a block is set down it stays there.
Hand hygiene without power
The foot-operated hand sanitiser station is the item every game, stand and entrance got in that period: press the pedal with a foot and sanitiser drops from the pump bottle above, with no hand contact on the unit. It runs on the pedal alone, so there's no power, no batteries and nothing to charge on site, it stands 1.2m tall on a 400mm by 300mm footprint, and a day's hire starts from £29. Around it, the original list still applies: signage, taping and plastic screening, gazebos and small marquees, generators and power distribution, tables and chairs, indoor and outdoor lighting and heating. Businesses could still operate through that lockdown as long as government guidelines were followed, and this is the kit that helped them do it - separate walkways, one-way systems, covered space outdoors and a clean place to eat a packed lunch.
Hiring the kit
Most of the smaller safety items are set up as add-ons, so you add them to a quote on the main kit you're hiring, or ring 0114 345 0135 and the office will price a standalone package. We hire or sell most lines, with long-term rates from week one. Public liability cover runs at £5 million on every hire, and insurance certificates are available for any site sign-in that asks for them. Campsmount left a Trustpilot review that sums the delivery side up: "Great value, reliable delivery, installation and collection." Delivery runs from Rotherham across Sheffield, Doncaster, Barnsley and the surrounding areas, with nationwide coverage for larger site packages - the concrete weights and jersey barriers in particular travel all over the country for construction and event work.
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