How chair trolleys can speed up set-up and take-down for your events

Moving, setting up and taking down temporary seating en masse can be time-consuming and laborious. Multi-purpose rooms like village or town halls that might need to host a public meeting in the morning and then a scout troop in the evening must be able to put out and remove chairs quickly and safely.

Likewise, sites hosting all-hands meetings, conferences or larger events need to be able to deploy sufficient seating with minimum disruption.

The solution

If your site regularly uses folding or stacking chairs there are many kinds of sack trucks, dollies and trolleys that can make setting chairs up (and taking them down again) less of a hassle.

Folding chairs

A chair trolley designed for folding chairs can help you move large quantities of chairs with ease and speed — the chairs are simply loaded onto the trolley, which can then be wheeled about as needed. If your site has a lot of folding chairs, you might look at chair trolleys that can also double as chair storage. These portable racks can hold higher numbers of folding chairs neatly and in as small a footprint as possible. They not only save space, they also save time spent loading and unloading the chairs, or returning to the storage area to load up. 

Some chair trolleys have advanced features like stair climbing wheels, so if your site has steps, kerbs or stairs these are the perfect solution. There are also models available that use strapping to keep the chairs in place — ideal if you need to load the chairs and trolleys into the back of a van for use off-site.

Stackable chairs

If you use stackable chairs rather than folding ones there are trolleys and dollies designed to meet your needs as well. These are closer in form to a wheeled platform than the sack truck style of the folding chairs trolleys, allowing you to place a stack of chairs on the platform and wheel about as required. Due to this design, these trolleys are a natural fit for both storage and movement duties – brakes on the castors and walls or straps to retain the load allow you to leave securely in storage with no issues.

 As with any manual handling task, correct lifting procedures should always be followed to ensure the minimum amount of stress and strain on the body. Be sure to refer to a health and safety expert if you need any further guidance or have any questions.

What makes a good chair storage trolley?

When you review trolleys or platforms for chair movement and storage, you need to pay attention to the construction materials. Whilst individual chairs might be lightweight, multiple units get heavy quickly – you’ll need a trolley that can easily hold a full load without any issues. Tubular steel construction is the standard, as it is strong and inflexible but doesn’t add too much weight. You should be able to see the maximum load capacity of your trolley or dolly – be sure to stick to this.

Second to this is the mobility of the trolley. If you need to move your chairs outdoors or over uneven or unreliable terrain, you’ll want to go with beefy wheels and tyres that can withstand some knocks and bumps. For indoor only use, make sure to go with non-marking wheels so your flooring isn’t scuffed or otherwise damaged when you use the trolley. You’ll also want to make sure that at least two of the wheels have brakes (on platform style trolleys and dollies, sack truck style models don’t need this feature as they will stay still when in the upright position) so that you can load, unload and store without fear of the unit moving around freely.

Article courtesy of Here