How much space does a party trailer actually need?

Every enquiry we get starts in roughly the same place: someone stands in their driveway, looks at it, and tries to work out whether an eighteen-foot trailer is going to fit. Here is how to settle it in about two minutes.

The three numbers

The Hoop trailer is 18 feet long, 8.5 feet wide and 10 feet tall. Length and width are the easy part: if two cars park where you are thinking of putting it, the footprint is fine. A standard two-car driveway in Los Angeles runs about 18 to 20 feet deep and 18 wide, which is comfortably more than we need.

Then leave room in front of the play side. The long side of the trailer lifts up into an awning and your guests stand underneath it, so you want clear space for people to queue and shoot without backing into a car or a fence.

The one people forget

Height. Ten feet is not much for a garage but it is quite a lot for a residential street with mature trees over it, and it is the measurement nobody thinks to check. Walk the route the trailer will take, from the street to the spot, and look up. Low branches, sagging cable lines, a garage door header, the underside of a carport, the clearance bar at the entrance to a parking structure — any of those can stop a booking that would otherwise have been fine.

Neighbourhoods where this comes up most in our experience: the older streets in Pasadena and Arcadia with sixty-year-old oaks over them, the hillside roads in Sherman Oaks and Glendale, and gated communities where the guard house has a canopy across the entry lane.

The ground

It needs to be firm and reasonably level. Concrete, asphalt and hardstanding are all straightforward. A sloped driveway is more of a problem than a small one — if your driveway pitches steeply up or down from the street, the flat pad at the top, the cul-de-sac head, or a nearby school or church lot is usually the better call. Soft ground and soggy grass are not a good idea for something this size.

Access

We have to tow it in and, just as importantly, turn it. A generous back yard reached through a three-foot side gate is not a location. A gated motor court can be enormous and still be too tight to swing an eighteen-foot trailer into. If you are not sure, the fastest thing you can do is send us a photo of the approach and the gate. We will tell you honestly before you book, rather than on the morning of the party.

Indoors

Possible, and we do it — but the limiting factors are the ten feet of height and the load-in width rather than the floor area of the room. If you are looking at a hotel ballroom, an expo hall or a warehouse, get the door height and the load-in route from the venue and send them to us.

Not sure about your spot? Send us the address and a photo when you check your date and we will give you a straight answer.