Whether you’re planning your company picnic or leaping into matrimony, hosting an outdoor event means counting on Mother Nature’s unpredictability and adjusting accordingly. And those who can’t tweak their event to accommodate lousy weather might run into some issues. Luckily, there are various ways you can prep your event to handle inclement weather, and we’ll share them with you in this guide.

Bring Covers and Temporary Shelters

If you’re planning an outdoor event of any kind, alternative shelters and covers are essential. This is especially true if you’re trying to prepare for the possibility of inclement weather. To illustrate, perhaps you’ve always dreamed of a breezy, beautiful, outdoor wedding reception in April. The band is playing, and your guests are dancing and sipping on wine.

Everything is going exactly as planned until you look over and realize that there’s an enormous storm on the horizon. Without any alternative arrangements, the storm effectively rains out your reception while causing severe damage to the band’s equipment. The good news is that things don’t have to go this way on your big day. In fact, the solutions here are pretty simple. To start, if you know your reception is outside, go ahead and rent a tent.

Doing so will ensure that you have a temporary shelter while you and your guests wait out the storm. We suggest investing in a white event tent rental for larger affairs like weddings. It’ll provide extra coverage, and you can modify it to meet your needs. It’s also best to bring tarps and other water-resistant materials to cover expensive equipment, table settings, and lighting.

Have a Game Plan and Communicate It

Having covers and temporary shelters is only part of the equation, though. The most effective way to prepare for bad weather at your outdoor event is having a game plan for when things go awry and communicating it clearly to your party. For instance, say you’re hosting a casual fundraising event in the park. There are games, picnic areas, live music performances—the whole nine yards. So you come prepared with tarps and tents.

But they won’t be effective if you can’t use them in time to keep bad weather from ruining things. That’s why you should organize a plan of action ahead of time to ensure that you can shelter your event quickly and mitigate the damage if the rain starts falling unexpectedly. As a result, you should have your tents set up ahead of time.

Put your tarps next to the equipment they’re supposed to cover. Plan an evacuation route for attendees in case of extra severe weather and have a few people designated to help. In any case, having the logistics of your alternative arrangements organized ahead of time will ensure that things continue to run smoothly.

Select a Backup Location

We can’t discuss ways to prepare for bad weather at your outdoor event without mentioning the importance of having a backup location. Even the best game plans can fall through if the weather is harsh enough. For instance, suppose you planned a music festival. It’s a multi-act affair, which means multiple stages and a plethora of expensive equipment.

Now imagine that a thunderstorm comes through, and the lake next to your event starts overflowing. There’s no salvaging the outdoor part of your event in this type of scenario. You need to move it to an indoor spot that’s dry and away from the water. It may not be ideal, but having a backup location is better than canceling your event altogether. Moreover, it’s far safer for the people attending.