The Gala Tent story is one of a tenacious young aspiring entrepreneur by the name of Jason Mace. Jason was tasked
with finding a marquee to expand his parent's club in Hemingfield, Barnsley, not far from the current location of Gala
Tent's headquarters. The marquee was required for the Millennium celebrations but tent rental companies all throughout the nation were out of stock.
Since there was nothing available to rent, the marquee hiring industry must have been experiencing its highest revenues in years. Thousands upon thousands of people had made the decision to celebrate at home rather than pay the
exorbitant prices that would undoubtedly be associated with such a significant event as the turn of the millennium.
When there were no accessible tents for hiring, Jason found some from an importer, bought as many marquees as he
could with a two-thousand-pound credit card investment, and then went door to door in the neighbourhood's bars and
clubs, offering his party tents to establishments in a similar predicament. He received no interest, but Jason changed
his marketing approach and re-marketed the product as "Millennium Marquees," to party organisers and soon he had
sold out of all his stock.
Jason continued to reinvest his takings into more and more stock, and before long he had made a profit of £10,000,
and with an investment of the same figure from his brother-in-law and now joint managing director, Mark Thompson,
the pair entered a fifty-fifty business relationship, and Gala Tent was established.
By the year 2000, the very website that you have visited today was launched, and Gala Tent began life as the very first
UK-based mail-order marquee supplier.
In 2005, the company launched the very first Gala Shade pop-up gazebo, which took the events and trading industry by
storm. Using customer feedback to drive the development of the products, Gala Tent quickly added patent protected
construction to their gazebos, adding different models and sizes to the range.
As recently as 2019, there were four models in the range, which were the steel-framed Gala Shade Pro MX, a model
that was based upon that very first Gala Shade gazebo release way back in 2005. Added to this were the Gala Shade
Pro 40 and its smaller Pro 40 Compact model, and the UK’s most popular gazebo, the Gala Shade Pro 50.
In 2020, during the height of a global pandemic, the company had the bravery to launch two new models to the world,
in the new entry level Pro DX, and the UK-exclusive Gala Shade Pro 60. Both models were an instant success, and the
Gala Shade range became 6 models strong, across 5 distinct sizes.
In 2023, Gala Shade Pro Gazebos have gained an impressive reputation for being the last tent standing in a storm, and
the model of gazebo that customers always turn to when their cheaper model has failed them.