Getting the Max
Everyone needs a bit of help to get through a big event, at a price they can afford
Brigit Grant is the Jewish News Supplements Editor
Max Hermet was going to be an accountant. Or an osteopath.Fortunately he chose neither, and is now the face and all-round fixer at WA Carr & Son, an event hire and management company that is young enough to care about its clients and do it at a price they can afford. As those who have made a bar mitzvah, wedding or big party know, it’s a tortuous business.
Even the most confident hosts quake at the prospect of holding an event that requires lights, music, a stage, decorations and lots of plates and glasses. But it doesn’t have to be! The WA Carr & Son team alleviates the anxiety the moment they walk through the door.
They are Hertfordshire’s local event specialists.with multiple storage locations who cover Oxford to London and everywhere in between. Providing all event hire services and planning alongside Marquees, WA Carr & Son work for some of the most well known companies in the local area and UK and pride themselves on a high standard and execution.
You could say Max was born into the hosting business as his mother Frederique had a small crockery hire company in Croxley Green near Chorleywood for some years before she approached caterers to grow the venture a little.
Max was then studying osteopathy and planned to open a clinic. But it was all change when he started helping out his mum and got caught up in the party atmosphere.
“We then bought two other companies – catering equipment and furniture hire – and it went from there,” says Max, who now has a team of more than 14 with whom he can create anything you desire, be it The Greatest Showman in a banqueting suite or a Hogwarts-themed barmitzvah in a hall.
While still supplying all the caterers, Max saw the need for a company that could provide not just the table settings and furniture, but all the extras and he went for it. “We do every bit of furnishing, incorporate all the settings into the décor and we now make props as we have carpentry and welding machines on site.”
In truth, with Max’s personable and anything-is-possible attitude, WA Carr and son has grown exponentially in the past 12 months.
“Event management was a natural progression because we were asked for help from clients when we were just providing the marquees. They did not know what to ask their suppliers and we did. On-the-day management is so important at an event as we know everything from the layout of the room to what plugs and generators are needed for the DJ or the band. We don’t work on massive margins, but we are the first ones in and the last to leave.”
And though they are now a one-stop-shop for any event and can provide all the music, flowers, balloons and knives and forks, they are still doing a great line in marquees – including one with three metre legs.
They can also do the crockery, but then they always could.
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