The Glamping Group · internal · round 2 · 4 November 2026
Are we overpricing weddings?
Round 2, after Max's notes. All prices are per 5m tent for the whole weekend, inc VAT, unless a line says ex VAT.
Yes, on real beds, especially for 4 people. The tent itself is priced right. Empty (£169) and airbed couples (£262) sit on the market median.
Real beds for 2 cost £357 against a £285 median, and for 4 £519 against £375. That's among firms that put real beds into many guest tents, checked again firm by firm.
A real bed costs us only about £6 per wedding and earns about £39. So getting more guests onto real beds is how we make more money, as long as the price doesn't put them off.
Recommendation: Option C, a real-bed package with bedding included. Essentials with real beds £319 for 2, Luxury with real beds £349, £60 per extra person, so 4 people costs £439. Everything else stays as it is.
It makes the most profit of the four options (£211 a tent against £208 today) and puts the most guests on real beds (56% against 44%). It breaks even if 1 in 6 airbed tents moves up.
Keep towels as an add-on, give Essentials a rug, hooks and a bin (about £1.50 a tent), and pick one of the three Deluxe drafts next.
1. Where we sit against the market
The tent is priced right. Real beds are dear, and most of all for 4 people.
market medianTGG todayTGG under option C
| Real beds, per person | Market | Today | Option C |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 people | £143 | £179 +25% | £160 +12% |
| 4 people | £94 | £130 +38% | £110 +17% |
The gap grows with each person because we charge £81 per extra person (bed £55 plus bedding £26), while rivals add about £50 to £60. A small premium is fair: our beds are raised frames with memory foam, and we run guest booking for the couple.
Round 2 re-check: only firms that put real framed beds into many guest tents at a wedding count. Bridal-only real beds are out.
| Operator | Base | Empty | 2 ppl | 4 ppl | Beds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TGG Essentials (Luxury +£30) | York | £169 | £357 | £519 | Frame + memory foam |
| Rent Bell Tents, Hotel (2027 list) | Henley | £205 | £480 | n/a | Raised frame + foam |
| Bellorama, Gold | Wiltshire | £150 | £350 | n/a | Bed base + mattress |
| Devon Belles, Luxury | Devon | £179 | £329 | £429 | Wooden frame |
| Boutique Bell | Hampshire | £195 | £325 | £370 | Jay-Be folding frame |
| Tee&Toast (ex VAT £270 / £340) | Chichester | £150 | £324 | £408 | Framed beds + foam, 250 tents |
| Peaceful Lane | Dorset | £150 | £300 | n/a | Metal frame double |
| Peg & Mallet (2025 prices?) | Norfolk | £180 | £285 | £375 | Wooden double |
| Camp Chic (one site, 2027 list) | Somerset | £135 | £280 | £360 | King divan + foam |
| The Canvas Co (same firm as Resonate Events) | Macclesfield | £140 | £280 | £420 | Metal frame |
| New Forest Bell Tents | Hampshire | £150 | £265 | £300 | Jay-Be folding frame |
| Rent Event (not Rent Bell Tents) | Eastbourne | £130 | £260 | n/a | Raised bed |
| Tinker's Bells | Uttoxeter, Staffs | £120 | £250 | £310* | Wooden double; *2 on camp beds |
| Great British Tents | Sussex | £162 | £234 | n/a | Jay-Be folding |
| Median, real guest beds | £160 | £285 | £375 | 13 and 7 firms | |
| Median, any bed type | £280 | £335 | 26 and 21 firms |
Northern rivals, none with priced real guest beds: Greenfield (Richmond) £200 / £240 on camp beds; North Sky Yurts (Wetherby) £210 / £260 on airbeds, with a real bed only in the honeymoon tent; Beverley Events £225 a tent on floor foam; Simply Bells (Wakefield) £240 for 4 on camp beds; Horseshoe Glamping (Chorley) publishes no prices.
Max's names, checked: Tea and Toast is Tee&Toast and still trading (in the table). Woodville is Woodville Project, Hertfordshire, with raised beds at £250 / £300 per night and a 20-tent minimum; it's left out of the medians because it prices per night. Hotel Bell Tent is festival-focused with no published prices. Fred's Yurts (Mid-Wales) uses futons and shows no prices. Yurtel went into liquidation in May 2025. Cloud Nine is a pop-up campsite, not a hirer, and its domain is dead. The Glamping Company's site no longer resolves. Canvas Co's live prices are for metal-frame beds; we couldn't find the £225-for-4 floor option, and its nearest is airbeds at £325 for 4. Tinker's Bells is in Staffordshire, not the North West.
What changed since round 1: six firms had their bridal tent in the 2-person column (Beautiful Bells, Brilliant, Cotswold, Bedford and Norfolk Bells, Bears and Butterflies) and now show their guest-tent price, all on camp beds or airbeds. Canvas Co's "£260 for 2 or 4" was a single "from" price. Victoria Lily and Silverback are now unclear. Same-price-for-2-and-4 firms (Beverley, Bellows, West Coast) really do charge one flat price per tent. Prices were read live on 4 November 2026; few firms show the year or say whether VAT is included.
2. What wedding guests actually buy
Across 2025 to 2027, about two in five wedding tents had real beds, and that share is climbing.
Real beds, share of wedding tents
The 59% figure is festivals booked for 2027 so far. Weddings for 2027 are at 53%, from only 19 tents, so treat that as an early sign rather than a firm number.
All wedding guest tents, 2025 to 2027 combined (219 tents)
| Package | Airbeds | Real beds | No beds | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Empty (Unfurnished) | 22% | 8% | 6% | 36% |
| Essentials | 17% | 7% | 0% | 25% |
| Luxury | 10% | 17% | 3% | 29% |
| 2025 Deluxe all-in (£345, bed and bedding included) | 0% | 10% | 0% | 10% |
| Total | 49% | 42% | 9% | 100% |
- The single biggest group is the empty tent on airbeds: 22%.
- Few people take Essentials with real beds (7%). Real-bed buyers jump straight to Luxury (17%), or took the Deluxe bundle when it existed (10%).
- Six in ten wedding tents sleep 2, and about one in six sleep 4. The average is 2.5 people.
3. What a real bed really costs us
A real bed costs us about £6 per wedding and earns about £39 after VAT, so it's our best add-on, not a drain.
| One real bed (frame + memory foam), one wedding | Cost, ex VAT |
|---|---|
| Foam wear: about £100 a mattress, lasting about 80 uses (Max's checker: £1.50 a mattress) | £1.50 |
| Frame wear: about £35 a frame, lasting 150 or more uses | £0.25 |
| Mattress protector wash (Bubbles £1.45) | £1.45 |
| Spoilage allowance: about 1 in 100 uses ruins a mattress (Max: "mattresses get spoilt") | £1.00 |
| Labour: build about 4 min (Max's timing), strike 2 min, load and unload 2 min, so 8 min at £14 an hour | £1.90 |
| Van space at a wedding: fits in the van that's going anyway (see below) | £0 |
| Total per real bed | about £6 |
| Bedding per person: Bubbles wash £2.92, linen wear £0.70, made up at the unit in 5 min at £11 an hour (£0.90) | £4.50 |
| Profit per item, one wedding | Price | Profit after VAT, card fee and cost |
|---|---|---|
| Real bed | £55 | £39 |
| Bedding, per person | £26 | £17 |
| Real bed with bedding, per person | £81 | £56 |
| Double airbed | £15 | £10 |
| Single airbed | £8 | £5 |
| Towel set | £15 | £9 |
- Moving a couple from airbeds to real beds earns us about £68 more per tent at today's prices. Even at a bundle price of £319, it still earns about £37 more.
- The van rarely bites at a wedding. A guest-booked wedding sells about 8 tents. Even at 16 foams (4.1 m³) the load fits in one Luton (about 17 m³, or 62 foams on their own). A second trip only comes up at roughly 25 or more real-bed tents. That trip costs about £135 (van day £45, fuel at 20p a mile, two crew driving), or about £2.20 per foam. As Max says, at wedding distances we can do two trips.
- The real limit is stock: we own 102 memory foam singles and 103 frames. That's about 51 real-bed tents at once, across every job on the same weekend.
Assumptions, plainly: foam and frame prices and lifespans are estimates from the June stress test (no purchase invoice found for the current foams). Labour is £14 an hour crew time, using Max's 12 Oct timings where they exist. Card fees are 1.7%. Laundry is the 2026 Bubbles rate card. The base cost of a tent (pitch, strike, sweep, about 35 crew minutes, plus £10 tent wear) is about £19. Van and driving to the wedding are covered by the couple's Setup & Collection fee, so they're not counted per tent.
4. Four ways to price it
Each option shows what a guest pays today against what they'd pay under the option, and what we keep per tent across all our real 2026-27 wedding tents.
Option A. Keep today's prices. Empty £169, Essentials £195, Luxury £225; real bed £55, bedding £26, double airbed £15.
| Tent (Essentials) | Guest pays | We keep |
|---|---|---|
| 2 on airbeds | £262 | £183 |
| 2 on real beds | £357 | £251 |
| 4 on airbeds | £329 | £227 |
| 4 on real beds | £519 | £362 |
Expected mix: no change from today (44% real beds). Average profit per tent: £208. Risk: no guest has yet paid these 2027 prices, and the 4-person real-bed tent is far above the market.
Option B. Dearer empty tent, cheaper beds. Empty goes up to £185, so stepping up to Essentials (£195) costs only £10. Real beds drop to £40 and bedding to £24.
| Tent (Essentials) | Today | Option B | We keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 on airbeds | £262 | £258 | £180 |
| 2 on real beds | £357 | £323 | £223 |
| 4 on airbeds | £329 | £321 | £220 |
| 4 on real beds | £519 | £451 | £306 |
Expected mix (our guess): 4 in 10 empty-tent guests step up to Essentials, and 2 in 10 airbed tents switch to real beds, giving 54% on real beds. Average profit per tent: £207 (if nobody changes: £199). Risk: the cheapest headline goes up by £16 for the biggest group of guests.
Option C. Real-bed package with bedding included. Everything else stays as today. New: "Essentials with real beds" £319 for 2 and "Luxury with real beds" £349 for 2, bedding included (king or twin), £60 per extra person.
| Tent (Essentials) | Today | Option C | We keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 on airbeds | £262 | £262 | £183 |
| 2 on real beds | £357 | £319 | £220 |
| 4 on airbeds | £329 | £329 | £227 |
| 4 on real beds | £519 | £439 | £296 |
Expected mix (our guess): 1 in 4 airbed tents moves up to the real-bed package, giving 56% on real beds. Average profit per tent: £211 (if nobody changes: £202). Break-even: 1 in 6 airbed tents moving up.
Option D. Real beds only with Luxury. Empty and Essentials offer airbeds only. Real beds stay at £55, but only on a Luxury tent.
| Tent | Today | Option D | We keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 on airbeds (Essentials) | £262 | £262 | £183 |
| 2 on real beds (must be Luxury) | £357 | £387 | £271 |
| 4 on airbeds (Essentials) | £329 | £329 | £227 |
| 4 on real beds (must be Luxury) | £519 | £549 | £382 |
Expected mix (our guess): of the 1 in 5 tents that take real beds on Empty or Essentials today, half pay up for Luxury and half drop to airbeds. That gives 34% on real beds, fewer than today. Average profit per tent: £203. It only beats Option A if every one of those guests pays up for Luxury (£214), and that's unlikely at £387 to £549.
| Side by side | Real-bed tents | Avg guest price | Profit / tent | vs today |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. Today's prices | 44% | £298 | £208 | n/a |
| B. Dearer empty, cheaper beds | 54% | £300 | £207 | -£1 |
| C. Real-bed package | 56% | £306 | £211 | +£3 |
| D. Real beds only with Luxury | 34% | £292 | £203 | -£5 |
How this was worked out: the 127 real 2026-27 wedding tents were repriced one by one, using the beds, bedding and towels each one took. The mix shifts are our estimates, not measured, which is why each option also shows the "nobody changes" figure. Cheaper real beds may also bring more guests to book a tent at all. That isn't counted here, and it would favour B and C.
5. Recommendation
Go with Option C: the real-bed package fills the empty middle, puts the most guests on real beds, and makes the most money.
- It earns the most per tent (£211) and gets the most guests onto real beds (56%).
- It fills the gap Max spotted. Essentials with real beds becomes a clear, named choice at £319, between the empty tent on airbeds (£169 to £262) and Luxury with real beds (£349).
- It fixes the price that's out of line. 4 people on real beds drops from £519 to £439, close to Devon Belles (£429), and our real beds sit in bulk where few rivals compete.
- It doesn't touch the £169 headline or the airbed route, and they're already on the market median.
- The downside is small and easy to see: if nobody moves up it costs about £6 a tent (about £800 a season on these numbers), and it breaks even when 1 in 6 airbed tents moves up. The 2025 Deluxe bundle took 21 of 34 real-bed sales, which suggests they will.
- Watch stock. At 56% real beds, a 15-tent wedding needs about 18 foams. Two big weddings and a festival on one weekend could hit our 102.
Option B is a close second and could be layered on later: raising Empty to £179 to £185 narrows the jump to Essentials. Test it on one season of new enquiries rather than everywhere at once. Option D works against the goal and makes less money.
6. A credible Essentials
Essentials today is a crate, a camping light and a doormat. Adding a rug, hooks and a bin makes it look finished for about £1.50 a tent.
| Add to Essentials | Cost per wedding | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Jute runner rug by the bed | £1.00 | We own 110 runners. Luxury keeps the big rugs, cushions and plants |
| Hanging hooks or a tidy for clothes and phones | £0.15 | About £4 each, lasts 30 uses |
| Small bin with a liner | £0.20 | Cuts clean-up time too |
| Labour, about 1 extra minute | £0.25 | |
| Total | about £1.50 | Keep the price at £195 |
Bigger idea for later: make Essentials "bed made up" (a double airbed and bedding for 2 included, about £14 of cost) at about £249. That would make every package come with a bed, with real beds as the upgrade. It's not modelled here.
7. Towels
Don't build towels into packages; most guests don't want them. Make them a one-tap add-on instead.
- Only 17% of wedding tents and 18% of festival tents take towels. Each set earns us about £9.
- Including 2 sets in Luxury with real beds at no extra charge costs us about £5.60 a tent. Four in five guests wouldn't use them, so that's mostly wasted laundry.
- Raising the package price by £15 for towels makes guests who don't want them pay for them, which is a bad look on a package meant to be good value.
- Do this instead: a clear "Add towels, £15 a set" line right after the bed choice, and a reminder in the pre-arrival email. Put towels in Deluxe only, where everything is meant to be included.
8. Deluxe: what already exists
There are three versions of Deluxe on file and none is live, so the next step is to pick one, not to build from scratch.
| Version | What it is | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 Deluxe all-in (sold) | Fully furnished tent, double memory foam bed, bedding included. Sold on 2025 wedding forms and on Square ("Deluxe package £345") | £345 for 2 |
| 12 Oct 2026 "Optional Deluxe tier" (draft) | Luxury, 2 real beds, bedding, towels, clothes rail and hangers, full-length mirror, 2 chairs and a table, power bank, cool box, underbed trays. Kit cost assumed about £155 a tent, about £30 a use | £329 wedding / £399 festival, +£60 per extra person |
| Sep 2026 "Signature Sleep Suite" concepts (draft) | A: finished two-person room on our real beds with topper, better linen, towels and lamps (£449). B: upgraded mattress system (£549). C: 7m suite for two (£695) | £449 to £695 |
Sources: the 2025 guest bookings sheet and Square orders; the Downloads file price-recommendations-2027.md, mirrored to TGG-Shared/TGG/Finance/price-list-2027.html, section 3; Growth/2026-09-repeatable-demand/PROGRAMME.md, section G. TODO.md has an open P2 item to "recompute Deluxe bundles" after fixing the margin checker. A naming note: the draft £329 Deluxe overlaps with Option C's £349 "Luxury with real beds", so if Option C goes ahead, Deluxe needs to sit clearly above it (towels, furniture and finish), probably at £399 or more.
9. Spend per tent, and how prices moved
Wedding guests have spent about £230 a tent for three years, and the 2027 list would put the same tents at £298.
| 2023 | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 so far | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wedding: average paid per tent | £230 | £242 | £230 | £247 |
| Wedding: real-bed tents, average paid | n/a | £322 | £277 | £286 |
| Festival: average paid per tent | n/a | £331 | £321 | £336 |
| Essentials + real beds for 2, list price | n/a | £285 | £285 to £320 | £357 |
Guests pay the price their couple was quoted, so nearly every wedding tent so far went at older lists. In 2023 we sold one all-in tent with airbeds and bedding at £175 to £245.
10. Data used, and its limits
About 690 tents of real bookings, 2023 to 2027. 2024 is mostly missing.
- Booking pages (Supabase): 120 paid or held bookings for 2026-27, with tests removed.
- 2026 guest booking sheets (Drive): 22 event sheets, May to October 2026.
- 2025 wedding guest sheet (Drive export, 17 Dec 2025): 92 tents. 21 had only a deposit recorded, so their totals are worked out from the list price.
- Square orders 2021 to 2026: itemised for the 2023 event tents and the 2025 festivals.
- Costs: PRICING-MATRIX-STRESSTEST (June 2026), Max's 12 Oct timings in job-margin-checker, the Bubbles 2026 rate card, Pricing.md (62 foams per Luton), and live stock from tgg-unit.
- Not used: pre-2025 wedding order forms (Google Sheets only), Stripe line items, Xero and Airtable.