Guides
American Rental Association: What Party Rental Operators Get
What the American Rental Association gives a party rental yard: The ARA Show, Rental Management, insurance access, CERP training, chapters.
What the American Rental Association (ARA) is worth to a party rental yard comes down to a short list of concrete things: an annual industry trade show, a monthly trade magazine, access to a rental-specific insurance program, a professional designation for event rental staff, lobbying on rental tax and transportation rules, and state and regional chapter meetings. This article names each of those and explains what each one does for a party rental business operations budget — and what the association does not do. It does not quote a dues number, because pricing is set per company; you have to ask for the schedule that applies to a yard like yours.
What the American Rental Association is
The American Rental Association is the trade association for equipment and event rental businesses in the United States, based in Moline, Illinois. Its members range from general tool and equipment yards to companies that rent tents, tables, chairs, linens, inflatables and party equipment. Party and event rental is one segment of that membership, not a separate association with its own staff.
That shape matters when you weigh it. A good deal of what the ARA publishes, lobbies on and exhibits serves the whole rental industry, so a party-only yard should judge the association by the parts it will actually touch, not by the size of the whole catalog.
What a party rental operator actually gets
The ARA Show
The ARA Show is the association's annual trade show, known for decades as The Rental Show before the name changed. It rotates between host cities and pairs an exhibit floor with an education program. It is the one place where you can walk a floor and see tents, tables, linens, inflatables, software and trucks in the same afternoon, and talk to the manufacturers and distributors behind them.
[figure 1]
ARA Membership Tiers Compared
Basic
- Who it fits
- One owner-operated yard
- What you get
- Magazine, member pricing
- Cost pattern
- Lowest dues
Standard
- Who it fits
- Growing yard, several trucks
- What you get
- Event discounts, some insurance
- Cost pattern
- Mid-range dues
Full/Premier
- Who it fits
- Multi-location specialist
- What you get
- Full insurance, committee seats
- Cost pattern
- Highest dues
Treat the trip as research with a cost attached: travel, hotel and days away from the yard, possibly in your booking season. That cost belongs inside the membership decision, not outside it.
Rental Management
The association publishes Rental Management, its monthly member magazine, along with member emails and newsletters. Coverage runs from operations and sales to staffing and legislation that affects rental companies. Read it as an industry magazine rather than a party magazine: skid-steer maintenance will not help you, but contract language, damage claims, labor and insurance coverage will.
ARA Insurance Services
ARA Insurance Services is the association's insurance arm, and it is the benefit most small yards join for. It places rental-specific property and casualty coverage, including the lines a party business carries: general liability, commercial auto for delivery trucks, inland marine for equipment on the road and on site, and workers compensation.
Membership is not coverage. You still apply, and the carrier prices your fleet, your loss history and your state. The advantage is that the program is built around equipment rented to other people, which general business policies handle badly. Before you compare anything, get the name of the writing carrier and the form numbers, and have your own agent quote the same limits and deductibles. Our breakdown of party rental insurance costs and coverage lays out the lines any group program has to sit alongside.
Ask for three things in writing: the program administrator, the carrier writing the policy in your state, and the form numbers. A quote that cannot name all three is not ready to compare.
CERP, the event rental designation
The Certified Event Rental Professional (CERP) designation is the association's credential for event and party rental staff, earned through coursework and testing. If you are bringing up a warehouse lead or an account manager who faces venues and planners, a structured designation is easier to defend in a bid than "we trained them ourselves."
Government affairs
Association staff track legislation and regulation that lands on rental fleets: the tax treatment of rental equipment, transportation rules that apply to delivery vehicles, and state and local rental tax proposals. A party yard running three trucks cares about weight, licensing and driver rules as much as a construction yard does, and any tax that applies to rental transactions shows up on your invoices. Member updates are usually how an operator hears about a proposed rule before it takes effect.
Chapters and local meetings
Members organize into state and regional chapters that hold local meetings. This is the cheapest benefit to use: operators within driving distance have already solved problems you are about to pay to learn. A tent repair source, a seasonal labor pool, a venue that pays slowly, a fire marshal who reads the code a certain way — those answers come from the room, not the magazine.
What the association does not do
- It does not set your prices or tell you what to charge for a tent, a delivery zone or a labor hour.
- It does not insure you automatically; membership is access to a program you still have to qualify for.
- It does not replace your local permitting or fire authority. Permits, inspections and the code your venue enforces come from your state and local officials.
- It does not run your yard. No membership fixes a route plan, a check-in process or a shrinkage problem.
How to decide whether to join
Run it as a comparison of named costs, in this order:
- Write down the benefits you will use in the next twelve months. Be specific: one show trip, one chapter meeting, one insurance quote, one employee through CERP.
- Ask the membership office for the current dues schedule for a company your size and get it in writing.
- Ask ARA Insurance Services to quote the same limits and deductibles you carry today, and to name the program administrator, the writing carrier and the form numbers.
- Ask your own agent to quote identical limits and deductibles so the two quotes can be compared line by line.
- Price the show trip and the chapter meetings, travel included.
- At renewal, join again only if you can name what you used.
[figure 2]
Membership Decision Checklist
- You have at least one vehicle and crew
- You rent tents or temporary structures
- You bid against ARA member companies
- You will attend one industry event
- You can name two magazine resources
- Your accountant confirms dues deductible
If the insurance quote wins on limits, deductibles and exclusions, membership usually pays for itself before you count the magazine or the show. If you run no delivery vehicles, already buy coverage cheaply through a local agent, and will not attend anything, the honest answer is to skip it or take the lowest level that keeps you on the mailing list.
Two decisions sit outside the association and stay yours. Pricing has to come from your own cost records, not from any trade group — see how to price party rental services. And any move into lighting, climate control or staffing should be tested against your own demand; party rental expansion covers how to read that before you commit.
