Table and chair rentals without a tent
You don't need a tent to rent tables and chairs. Plenty of orders go to a finished basement, a garage cleared out for a graduation party, a church hall or a living room set up for Thanksgiving. Order only what the room lacks: if the dining table seats eight and 22 people are coming, you need two more tables and 14 chairs, not a full setup.
Outdoors without a tent works too, as long as you have a backup plan for rain and know where the shade falls at 2 p.m. If the forecast turns, many companies can still add a tent to the order when the date is a few weeks out. It's a long shot the week before a June weekend.
How many tables and chairs for 30, 50 or 100 guests
A 60-inch round seats 8, a 72-inch round seats 10, and an 8-foot banquet table seats 8 to 10. Rent one chair per guest plus a few spares for the late RSVPs, then add two or three 6-foot banquet tables for food, drinks and gifts.
| Guests | 60-inch rounds | 72-inch rounds | 8-foot banquets |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 | 4 | 3 | 3 to 4 |
| 50 | 7 | 5 | 5 to 7 |
| 75 | 10 | 8 | 8 to 10 |
| 100 | 13 | 10 | 10 to 13 |
| 150 | 19 | 15 | 15 to 19 |
Rounds are better for conversation. Banquet tables fit more people into a narrow yard or a garage and are easier to push together into one long family table. For a sit-down meal under a tent, plan on roughly 10 to 12 square feet per guest; the tent size calculator does the math with a buffet and dance floor included.
Tables and chairs for Thanksgiving and holiday parties
November is the second rush for table and chair rentals in the Capital Region. Thanksgiving, Friendsgiving and December family parties all hit the same problem: the dining room seats eight and the guest list is 20.
Banquet tables solve it. Two 8-foot tables butted end to end run from the dining room into the living room and seat 16 to 20, and a 6-foot table in the kitchen holds the buffet. Measure before you order: an 8-foot table needs about 3 feet of clearance on each side for chairs and people squeezing past. Skip the 72-inch round indoors: with chairs pulled out it needs about a 12-foot circle, which most living rooms can't spare.
Ask whether delivery can come a day or two early. A Tuesday drop-off leaves Wednesday for cooking, and the chairs can go back the Friday or Monday after.
A party tent with tables and chairs in one order
For a graduation party or backyard wedding, book the tent, tables and chairs together. One company plans the layout so the tables actually fit under the tent, and one truck handles delivery and pickup. Ordering separately is how people end up with ten rounds and a tent that holds seven.
Most Capital Region tent companies carry frame and pole tents in sizes like 20x20, 20x30 and 20x40. As a rough guide, a 20x20 seats about 32 to 40 at rounds, and a 20x40 seats about 65 to 80. See party tent rental for sizes, sidewalls and what changes on pavement versus grass.
Folding chairs, chiavari chairs and banquet tables: picking styles
White folding chairs and plain round or banquet tables are the standard order, and almost every rental company carries them. For a wedding or a dressier party, ask about padded seats, chiavari chairs, cross-back chairs and farm tables; fewer companies stock those, so ask early.
Our chair rentals page compares folding, padded, chiavari and cross-back chairs, and table rentals covers round, banquet, cocktail high-top and farm tables plus the linen sizes that fit each one.
We send table and chair rental requests across Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Saratoga Springs and the suburbs in between, from Delmar to Clifton Park. For a city party, party rentals in Albany lists everything else you can add. Fill in the quote form with your date, town and headcount, or call (518) 464-8736.