Use these tips for determining the best portable church chairs to purchase and potentially save your church thousands.
Purchasing equipment for your portable church can be both an exciting and stressful time. The vision of your new church is finally materializing and buying all the things that will make it come together is a sign that you’re nearly at your launch date. However, you also have to consider your budgets and manage the money you have as wisely as possible.
To most people, researching and then purchasing the required sound system and lighting rig is substantially more interesting than carefully selecting which portable church chairs are best for your setup. But if you think about it, your church’s chairs are one of the most important collections of equipment.
As you already know, choosing equipment for a rented space is vastly different from choosing for a permanent space. And this also applies to your choice of church chairs. We want you to be as well-informed as possible when purchasing your portable church chairs, so use these tips to determine the best chair for your portable church.
3 Ways to Find the Best Portable Church Chairs
1. Choose a durable chair
Your visitors and attendees want to feel confident sitting in the chair that’s waiting for them. This is why it’s important that the chairs you choose are sturdy and durable. No one wants to experience that dreaded “crack” sound or have a chair collapse under them.
The chairs PCI recommends to its church plants and multisite customers boast an 800–1,000 lbs weight range. The plastic used for these chairs is both durable and comfortable, which is a combination that should not be overlooked when it comes to providing seating for people who will need to be seated for long periods, week after week.
Your attendees want to feel confident sitting in the chair that’s waiting for them. The chairs PCI recommends boast an 800–1,000 lbs weight range. They are both durable and comfortable, which is a combination not to be… Click To Tweet2. Find a lightweight model
When looking for portable church chairs, think of the volunteers who will be unpacking them, setting them up, taking them down, and then storing them every week.
It’s one thing to unfold a heavy and difficult chair, it’s another thing to have to do this 400 times when setting up and 400 times when tearing down.
Take care of your volunteers by choosing a lightweight and easy model to transport, even when using a dolly. This will not only show that you care about your volunteers but also demonstrate that you believe that equipment costs are secondary to your people’s health and happiness.
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3. Determine the size that best fits your portable church trailer
Logistics are a crucial part of your church plant since they involve moving equipment into and out of your rented space.
Some churches dedicate entire trailers to their seating arrangements. But this is often because their chair choice was based on a lower cost rather than looking at how efficiently they could be stacked and stored.
Although some chairs come in at a lower cost than others, it is important to also look at the cost of using space inefficiently. If your team is willing to purchase fractionally more expensive seating, then it is likely that you will not need a dedicated trailer for chairs.
With lightweight chairs that can be stored efficiently, churches often find that they can stow their seating solutions with other equipment and, therefore, save thousands of dollars by not needing an entire trailer dedicated to chairs.
TRAILER STORAGE
It’s also worth factoring in if your church will need to pay to store your trailers every week. The price of storage can vary greatly based on your circumstances. Many churches buy a trailer and leave it in a free spot. Some pay for a trailer parking place. In the space they rent, some churches have access to on-site storage. In any event, you should be aware of the upfront and continuing costs of storage in order to assess how your equipment choices will affect cubic volume.
Many cheap chairs also lack durability, which means your team will constantly be repairing or replacing each week, especially if you have a large number of chairs in your Portable Church system. Additionally, chairs that are cheaper are often too big and too heavy to be stored efficiently. And so, when a consultant recommends a seating solution that is slightly higher than other options, it is worth doing your sums and factoring in the cost of storing the chairs, too.
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FIND A BALANCED SOLUTION WHEN YOU SELECT YOUR PORTABLE CHURCH CHAIRS
There are plenty of great options on the market for portable churches but the key is to find a balanced solution. You need to look for a seating solution that fits both your budget and doesn’t end up costing your church even more money to store it all.
A good measuring stick to use when you do your research is that it is possible to store upwards of 675 chairs on one trailer if you have the right chair. With this information, you can evaluate your options and get a good idea of which is best for your church setup.
