The Whole as a Sum of its Parts - Sectional Marquees

Marquee fabric is a balanced mix of heavy-duty protection and lighter-weight temporary covering. Make fabric panels that are too large and before you know it your installation crew will be more than a little out of breath at the end of the day. This is why marquee tops from Celina come in both One Piece and Sectional styles – most canopy tops can be made in multiple pieces that link together to help facilitate easier carrying from place to place, with only a modest additional installation step.

The Sizing

While some sizes of marquee come only in Sectional format (specifically those on the large end of the spectrum), the more common sizes around six to twelve meters wide give you the option of choosing between sectional and single piece fabrication.

When you order larger marquee sizes, they start to come only in sectional formats. This is due to two things:

1. Size for Installation
   

   If you’ve seen the area covered by a 12.2m by 18.3m (which would be around 223 square meters, of course), you can well imagine the weight all of the material will be once you’ve folded it into a shape that you can try and lift. Splitting the fabric into connectable sections is the only conceivable way of being able to maneuver the fabric by hand.
   
   

2. Size for Manufacturing
   

   While we do this for a living, there is still a limit to the size of fabric seals we make. Most hot air welders, the machines used to create the seams on marquee tops, have an upper limit of around 20’. Longer seals require the entirety of the fabric to be moved down the machine and the rest of the seal re-aligned on the machine.

Connections

Sectional marquee pieces have a dual connection system, with one set of connections providing stability through the fabric and the second giving that connection a cover to protect the interior of the shelter from things like rain.

All sectional marquees are connected requiring pieces with two different lines of connectors, being a Lace Line and a Grommet Line. As it sounds (your imagination wasn’t far off), the lace line is a series of rope loops or “laces” that are sewn to the edge of the fabric. These loops are long enough to reach the next adjacent loop. The grommet line is a series of grommets in the piece’s edge, with these grommets lining up with the bases of the loops in side to be attached.

Starting at the peak of the marquee, the loop of the lace line is inserted into the corresponding grommet and then extended toward the perimeter of the top. The next loop is inserted into the corresponding grommet, then through the previous loop (which is extended toward it), and then is itself extended toward the next loop. In this way, the loops are all connected to each other through the grommet line, securing the two pieces of fabric together.

Attached to the lace line is the rain flap; this is a flap of fabric that extends past the edge of the piece over the laces. It connects to a rope line that is connected to the fabric in from the grommet line’s edge. Once clipped to the line, the flap is held over the top of the completed lace line/grommet line.

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With the option of having your marquee top in connectable pieces, the task of hauling the fabric around can be made much easier and safer. After all, lighter fabric means less of a desire to drag it along the ground, which should never be done to marquee fabric. Click here to watch our video on marquee lacing, or send any questions to UK@CelinaTent.com.