Chattanooga Tent was featured in Edge Magazine, with owner Mike Holland speaking on the effect the pandemic has had on business. Though Holland had once predicted that 2020 would be his company’s most successful year ever, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a downswing in business. In fact, business on the whole was down 22 percent when compared to 2019.
Holland said he felt very blessed despite that fact, as many other businesses were down by 50 to 70 percent. He clung to his optimism and watched his business continue to evolve and rise to meet the changing needs of the industry throughout and after the pandemic. From an avalanche of wedding and event cancellations in early 2020 to a shift in the need for spaces for COVID testing, vaccines, and even outdoor college classrooms, Chattanooga Tent has prevailed.
Holland said testing sites started coming down as 2020 drew to a close, but demand ramped up again when vaccinations started to roll out in January of this year. "That was another shot in the arm for us," he says. "From January to March, we put vaccination sites up in Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina." Holland says that while vaccination sites have been coming down of late, his event business is rebounding. "Starting in January of this year, I've had no [2021] cancellations," he says. "More people are having parties. More people are getting married. We're getting to where we might have to turn people away.”
As business continues to swell, Holland is thankful for his clients and staff. Read more about Chattanooga Tent’s rich history and handling the pandemic in the Edge Magazine story.