How much do party rentals cost on Long Island? Let’s give you a number you can plan around. In this blog, we’ll go over typical prices for everything from tables and chairs to the bar, linens and lounge furniture, and use our calculator to turn your guest count into an estimate.
We’ll also cover how to plan a tent for coastal weather and how to get a delivery out to the East End, Shelter Island and Fire Island. Plus, we’ll go over how far ahead to book, permits and venues. With the right numbers in hand, you’ll be ready to plan a wonderful Long Island celebration!
- Estimate What Your Long Island Event Will Cost
- Calculate Approximately How Much Party Rentals Will Cost
- How much does it cost to rent tables on Long Island?
- How much does it cost to rent chairs on Long Island?
- How much does it cost to rent bar and glassware on Long Island?
- How much does it cost to rent linens and lounge furniture on Long Island?
- What Else You Need to Know About Planning an Event on Long Island
- How Far Ahead to Book on Long Island
- Permits and Regulations on Long Island
- Venues on Long Island
- Need Party Rentals on Long Island?
Estimate What Your Long Island Event Will Cost
Start with your guest count, then switch off anything your venue already provides.
Your venue usually makes the biggest difference to the list. A catering hall or a hotel often brings its own tables and chairs, so your order may come down to linens and a few extras. A backyard, an estate lawn or a farm is open ground. There, you’re renting the whole room, and on Long Island that often means a tent as well.
Calculate Approximately How Much Party Rentals Will Cost
Enter your guest count and the calculator starts you with tables and chairs. Switch on linens and a bar if you need them, and the estimate updates as you go.
Calculate Approximately How Much Party Rentals Will Cost
Estimate what rentals might cost for your event. We've filled in the basics — add or remove items to see what changes.
Estimated rental cost
—
Rentals only — delivery, setup and damage waiver are quoted separately.
Why a range? Picking your table and chair styles below narrows it. The rest of the spread comes from the other categories — the low end assumes a practical setup, the high end a more formal one.
What's included
Tick anything on or off. Open a row to see what's behind the number.
Real prices depend on your dates and what's available.
See rentalsDelivery and setup. Not included above. Budget roughly $150 to $200 for delivery in most metro areas, and more if the site sits well outside the metro or the load-in needs extra labor — walk-ups, freight elevators and after-hours windows all add time.
Damage waiver.
Totals cover rentals only — not venue, food or staffing.
How the Calculator Turns a Guest Count Into an Order
The estimate works from a few simple quantities: 1 table for every 8 guests, 1 chair per guest, 1 cloth per table, and 1 bar station. Glasses are left out of the estimate, because the number you need depends on what you’re serving. The calculator’s bar option links to our drink calculator to help you work that out.
Those quantities suit a seated dinner. For a standing reception, you’ll swap most of the dining tables for cocktail tables and need far fewer chairs. Treat the estimate as a starting point and adjust anything that doesn’t fit your event.
The estimate covers seating, linens and a bar. If you’re planning an outdoor event, the tent, sidewalls, heat and power get sized with your vendor, and you’ll find how to plan for each of them under “What Else You Need to Know” further down.
How much does it cost to rent tables on Long Island?
Once you know how many tables you need, most of the order follows from it: the linens, the place settings, and the floor space or tent you’re planning around.
A 60-inch round seats 8 with formal place settings, or 10 at a casual buffet. The two figures differ because a formal setting takes 3 glasses per guest and a casual one takes 2, so the same tabletop holds fewer people once it’s laid. For 100 guests at a seated dinner, that’s 13 rounds; for the same 100 at a buffet, 10.
Smaller rounds work for smaller groups: a 48-inch round seats 6 to 8, and a 36-inch round seats 4. Our guide to table sizes and seating works through every shape.
Rectangular banquet tables line up end to end for a long family-style run. A 6-foot table (72 by 30 inches) seats 6 to 8, and an 8-foot table (96 by 30 inches) seats 8 to 10. On Long Island you can choose 4 and 8-foot banquet tables, a wood 6-foot table, and wider 8-foot tables. There’s also a children’s banquet table, which is handy for a birthday party.
Cocktail tables run 1 for every 4 or 5 guests at a standing reception, or 1 per 10 guests when there’s a seated meal, with 30 to 36 inches between them so people can move around. You can pick a 32-inch round cocktail table or a 30-inch highboy. Our cocktail table guide has the counts for different guest lists.
For a different look, specialty tables include farm tables and a serpentine table that curves into an arc.
If your tables are going under a tent on a lawn, decide on the count and the shapes first, because the tent gets sized around them. The tent section further down walks through the rest of that order.
Tables
| Item | Typical day rate |
|---|---|
| Specialty & Picnic Tables | ~$195 |
| Cocktail Tables | ~$16 |
| Rectangular Tables | ~$15 |
| Round Tables | ~$14 |
How much does it cost to rent chairs on Long Island?
Chairs are the easy count: 1 per guest. The style comes down to how long people will sit and how formal the event is. A 4-hour seated dinner wants padding. A 30-minute ceremony does not. Here’s what you can choose from:
- Poly or plastic folding chairs (AKA Samsonite): Light and stackable, and the least comfortable for long sittings. Ideal for casual gatherings, outdoor spaces and big groups. Long Island options include a white Samsonite folding chair.
- Resin and wood garden chairs: Sturdier than plastic, and many come with a padded seat. A popular choice for weddings and garden parties. Options include a white resin garden chair and a natural wood folding chair, both with padded seats, and a fruitwood folding chair.
- Luxury chairs: A more formal choice than folding chairs. You can pick crossback chairs in oak, fruitwood or a white distressed finish, or hourglass chairs.
If your guests will be seated for a long dinner, we recommend a padded seat. Our guide to rental chair types compares every style.
Barstools sit at cocktail-table height, so guests can take a seat without leaving the conversation. A few are usually enough for a standing reception, and you can choose an oak X-back barstool or a white Chiavari barstool.
For a kids’ birthday, children’s Samsonite chairs and children’s padded resin chairs pair with the children’s banquet table.
Chairs
| Item | Typical day rate |
|---|---|
| Barstools | ~$18 |
| Luxury & Chiavari Chairs | ~$13 |
| Folding Chairs | ~$4 |
How much does it cost to rent bar and glassware on Long Island?
Start with whether your venue has a bar. A backyard or an estate lawn won’t, so a rented bar goes on the order. You can choose a wine-barrel bar, a white portable bar, or a bar with a bar-top riser and skirting. A catering hall usually has its own bar, which may leave you ordering glassware only.
For glassware, the guest count alone won’t tell you how many glasses you need. A guest who starts with wine and moves on to a cocktail has used 2 glasses, so it helps to work from the drink list. Plan on 1 drink per guest per hour, which makes 400 drinks for 100 guests over 4 hours.
About 40 percent of those drinks call for beer glasses, 36 percent for wine glasses, and the remaining 24 percent for all-purpose glasses that cover cocktails and water. Our guide to how many glasses you need runs through the worked examples.
A few counts to have on hand:
- Champagne: 1 flute per guest for a toast, and 1 bottle per 8 guests gives everyone a half glass.
- Wine: a 750ml bottle pours about 6 glasses, so plan on 5.
- Water: about 4 twelve-ounce glasses per person over the event.
- Beer: draft beer needs glassware; bottles and cans may not.
If the venue washes glassware on site, order about 25 percent fewer. On Long Island you’ll find wine glasses in two sizes and champagne flutes, plus martini glasses and all-purpose water glasses. Our party drink calculator works out the drinks themselves.
Decide how you’ll serve: a host bar, an open bar or a cash bar. Our guide to host bars and open bars explains how each one works. Most venues require a certified bartender and don’t allow self-service, so if you’re booking a venue, plan on staffing the bar.
Bar and glassware
| Item | Typical day rate |
|---|---|
| Bars | ~$143 |
| Wine & Champagne Glasses | ~$1 |
How much does it cost to rent linens and lounge furniture on Long Island?
For table linens, plan on 1 cloth per table, sized to that table. Here’s how the round tablecloths fit:
- 120-inch round cloth: takes a 60-inch round table to the floor. A 108 stops at lap height.
- 132-inch round cloth: takes a 72-inch round to the floor, which helps if your venue’s own tables are that size.
Cocktail tables need their own cloth, separate from your dining tables, and they’re easy to leave off the count. A 30-inch highboy takes a 108-inch round cloth to the floor, so give the vendor the table’s height along with its diameter.
For banquet tables and other shapes, our tablecloth size guide has the full chart, and our guide to linens for a 60-inch round covers the most common table. When it’s time to lay the table, our guide to setting a table shows where everything goes. Linens go back to the vendor used, with no washing or pressing on your end.
For lounge furniture, plan on roughly 1 grouping per 100 guests. A grouping gives guests somewhere to sit away from the dining tables, at a standing reception or once dinner clears. A wicker patio set suits a lawn, a terrace or the edge of a tent. Set it near the bar or along the edges of the space, with a clear path around it. Our lounge furniture ideas have more ways to use a grouping.
Other rentals
| Type | Item | Typical day rate |
|---|---|---|
| Linens | Round Linens | ~$23 |
| Furniture | Lounge Furniture | ~$250 |
What Else You Need to Know About Planning an Event on Long Island
Planning a Tent for Long Island Weather
A tent is sized around your guest count, the table layout you chose above, and any covered space you want for a bar or buffet. Give the vendor those three things, plus what the tent will stand on, whether that’s a lawn or a hard surface. You can choose from frame and high-peak tents in a range of sizes, or a pop-up marquee tent for a smaller covered area.
Long Island gets an afternoon sea breeze. NOAA explains how it forms: during the day the air over land heats up more than the air over the water, and the cooler air off the water flows inland. Near the shore, plan the tent with wind in mind. Put sidewalls on the order, and plan the anchoring around what the site needs. Tent accessories include clear and solid white sidewalls, tent ballast blocks and tent leg liners.
If your tented event falls in late summer or early autumn, it sits inside the busiest weeks of the Atlantic hurricane season. Ask your vendor what their weather call is and when they make it, so you know when a backup plan would take over.
On a cool spring or autumn evening, plan the heat and the sidewalls together, because the walls change where a heater can safely go. You can choose tent heaters or a patio heater, with propane tanks to run them, and a pole-mounted circulation fan for warmer days. Propane heaters need fresh air, and our guide to heating a party tent explains why they shouldn’t run inside a fully enclosed tent without ventilation. Read it before you decide how many walls go up.
Generators power lighting, fans or music. To size one, add up the running watts of everything that will be on at once, then add the single highest surge figure. Our generator sizing guide has the numbers for common equipment. You’ll also find a quiet generator model, a power distribution box, and cable ramps to cover cords where guests walk.
On Suffolk County property, heaters, cooking and generators have to sit outside the tent and a set distance from it, and generators are fenced off from the public. That means they belong in the site layout from the start. This rule applies on county land only.
Lighting turns a tent into an evening space. Bistro lights hang overhead, perimeter and patio lights mark the edges, and a chandelier or can lights add a finished look inside.
Tented Events at North Shore Estates
On the North Shore, an outdoor event at an estate can be a tented one. Old Westbury Gardens describes its large events as “exclusive, large-scale tented celebrations,” and Sands Point Preserve offers the Rose Garden and terrace at Hempstead House for “open-air or tented ceremonies and receptions.”
When the tent goes up on an open lawn, everything under it goes on your order: tables, chairs, linens, lighting, plus heaters and sidewalls for a cooler evening. Build the rest of the list around the tent.
Some estates work with a partner. Old Westbury Gardens handles its large tented events through an exclusive event partner, so find out what the partner already brings before you order anything yourself.
Delivering to the North Fork, South Fork and Shelter Island
On summer weekends, traffic across the Shinnecock Canal is at its heaviest. Settle the delivery window and the pickup day when you place the order. If your date can move, a late-spring or early-autumn weekend makes both easier.
Shelter Island is reached only by ferry, and the delivery truck rides it too. North Ferry crosses from Greenport on the North Fork, and South Ferry crosses from North Haven, by Sag Harbor, on the South Fork. Neither takes reservations. Treat both the delivery time and the pickup time as windows, since the truck waits in the same ferry line as everyone else.
Shelter Island’s own tent permit form asks whether the tent has sides and whether there will be cooking under it. Decide on both before the application goes in, so the tent order and the permit match.
Delivering to Fire Island
Fire Island lies off the South Shore, in the towns of Islip and Brookhaven. From mid-May to mid-October, many visitors reach its communities by passenger ferry, according to the National Park Service. Driving to those communities takes a federal permit, and summer residents and renters can’t get one.
For a Fire Island party, settle delivery before anything else. The first question for a vendor is whether they deliver to your community, and how. Since you can’t drive the order over yourself, their answer shapes the list. Smaller, lighter pieces travel more easily than a full tent build, so plan the setup around what can make the trip.
How Far Ahead to Book on Long Island
Start as soon as your date and venue are settled. Once those are fixed, a vendor can hold items for you.
A tented event has a few more pieces to line up. In the Town of Southampton, the property owner signs that permit in front of a notary, even when you’re hosting at a rented house. That’s a good reason to start the tent conversation as soon as the date is set.
Permits and Regulations on Long Island
The permit most likely to touch your rental order is the tent permit, and which office issues it depends on who owns the ground. In Nassau, adding sidewalls can be what makes a smaller tent need a permit. If there’s any chance you’ll want walls, put them on the application from the start. Shelter Island’s form asks about sides too. Our Long Island event permits guide covers which office to call and what each one asks for.
Venues on Long Island
How much comes with the room varies widely on Long Island, from all-inclusive catering halls and hotels to estates, farms and gardens that leave the setup to you. Ask every venue for a written list of what’s included, then rent what’s missing. Our Long Island event venues guide groups venues by occasion and notes what each one includes.
Need Party Rentals on Long Island?
Your guest count sets the tables and chairs, and your venue decides how much of the room you’re renting. For an outdoor Long Island event, start with the tent and everything that goes under it.
Reventals makes that part simple. Browse tents, sidewalls, heaters, tables, chairs and more for your Long Island address, send one request, and our team works behind the scenes to keep the process smooth.
