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photos The Black & White facility, including 40,000 square feet of tent structures, organized and ready for the return of in-person gatherings and large-scale events.
12 PASSIONS | SUMMER 2022
by Kait Burgan
recent walk-through of the Black & White Event Rentals warehouse—with its impressively organized tents, tops and poles, hundreds of chairs and tables, thousands of plates and heaters—became unexpectedly nostalgic for me, as it’s impossible to experience a sneak peek at what goes into hosting an event without imagining attending one. When was the last time we have been able to attend a large event: a music festival, wedding, or conference? Since COVID-19 hit, these once familiar events, even smaller ones, have been mostly non-existent. So, it might be natural to assume a business built on providing equipment and support for massive music festivals, corporate trade shows, boat shows, sporting and food events, and large outdoor weddings, would be struggling or even closing given the last two years of upheaval. After meeting Dave Willie, owner of Black & White Event Rentals however, those assumptions disappear quickly. “Pivot is probably a word I hate right now, after two years of doing just that,” Dave says. He was in New Zealand in February of 2020, just before the full impact of the pandemic reached Vancouver Island. “But I realized very quickly that this could be a problem, so I guess there’s an advantage to going through a few other challenges over the last thirty years in business.”
