Almost nobody asks about power when they tour a venue. Then, somewhere around two weeks out, a caterer asks where the machine is going to plug in — and suddenly you are texting a venue coordinator who is not certain either.
We have catered at more than 70 venues across Utah County and the south end of the Salt Lake valley, and we write down what we find at every one: which outlet, which wall, what it will carry. Here is what four years of those notes actually say.
There are two kinds of machine and two kinds of outlet. Our full-size machines run on 240v — the same sort of outlet an electric clothes dryer or range uses. Our smaller machines run on ordinary 120v household outlets. Both are double-barrel, so whichever one turns up you still get two flavors plus a twist of the two — smaller means smaller, not fewer choices.
That second sentence matters more than people expect. A venue without a 240v outlet is not a venue we cannot serve. It is a venue where we bring the smaller machine. Power only becomes a real constraint when your guest count needs more machine than the building can carry, and that is a conversation we have when we quote you — not a surprise on the day.
This is the most consistent finding in all our notes. The 240v outlet lives in the unglamorous parts of a building:
So if you are touring venues and want to ask one useful question about this, do not ask whether they have power. Ask where the dryer outlet is.
Willow Springs in Springville has 240v outlets in the kitchen and out on the patio. That sounds like plenty. They sit on the same breaker — put two machines on them and it trips, usually about twenty minutes into service. So we plan one machine there. You will not find that on a floor plan.
White Willow in Provo has its 240v in the kitchen, but the machine sets up on the back balcony, because a commercial machine on a cart does not do stairs. It works beautifully out there. It is just worth knowing before you picture the dessert table somewhere specific.
An outlet on the far side of the building still works — we run cord — but it decides where the dessert table can go. Better to settle that before your florist plans around a spot we cannot reach.
Sometimes there is no venue coordinator to ask. It is a backyard, a church building, a park pavilion or an office, and the person who has to go and look is you.
Our machines come with an L6-20 plug on the cord, and we carry adapters for eleven 240v outlet types: 6-20, 6-30, 6-50, 10-30, 10-50, 14-20, 14-30, 14-50, L6-20, L6-30 and L14-30. The −20 outlets will run one machine; the −30s and −50s will run two at once.
If yours is not on that list, we can usually have a plug made up for it. But you do not actually need to work out which one you have. Take a photo of the outlet and text it to us on 801-663-8156. We will tell you whether it works. It is a five-second job at your end and it settles the whole question before anyone books anything.
We own one, and it is a $200 rental. It comes out when a building genuinely cannot carry what your guest count needs — not simply because a venue has no 240v outlet. Plenty of venues on our list run perfectly well on 120v.
One honest note: we added the 120v machines fairly recently and we have not been back to every venue since. At a handful of places our notes still say we bring our own power, when there may now be an outlet we can use instead. If your venue is one of those, ask us and we will check before you book.
If you are choosing between venues, or you have booked one and want to know what will happen, tell us where it is. Most of the time the answer is already written down. We keep venue-by-venue notes for Utah County and Salt Lake County, and if your venue is not on the list yet, we will ring them and ask before you owe us anything. The same power check happens before a straight machine rental goes out, because the outlet does not care who is pulling the handle.
