From Albany it is 21 miles to Rice — close enough that we know the roads and the venues. Folding chairs and banquet tables loaded on a trailer, quoted for the whole weekend. Tents and bounce houses too. Tow it yourself or let us bring it.
Rice is 21 miles from Albany, roughly a 30-minute drive, and it is a route we run often. If you have something rated to tow, 21 miles is nothing. If you do not, the flat delivery rate to Rice is quick to quote.
Rice has around 2,126 people, which in this part of Minnesota means a community that turns out properly when something is happening. The events we see out of Rice are the ones a town builds its year around — graduations, anniversaries, benefits, wedding receptions in a pole shed.
We cover Rice as part of a run through Benton County that also takes in St. Stephen, Royalton and Bowlus, so it is rare that we are making a trip out here for one booking. One number, agreed on the phone, unchanged when you return it. We have never seen a reason to complicate it. We would rather turn down a booking than take one we cannot do properly.
A Central Minnesota graduation open house is not a sit-down dinner. People arrive in waves across four or five hours, stay forty minutes, and leave. That means you do not need a chair for every guest on the list — you need a chair for everyone who happens to overlap.
For most Rice open houses that works out to somewhere between a third and a half of your total invite list. A full trailer covers an open house with several hundred people through the door, which is more than almost any single Rice graduation will see.
And you do not have to get the number right, because you are not renting by the chair. The trailer comes loaded for one flat price whether you use half of it or all of it, and if you need more than it holds we can add to it. See pricing →
Sauk Rapids-Rice Schools graduation lands in the same few weeks as every other district around here, and that is the crunch. The last two weekends of May and the first two of June are the ones that go first — often months ahead. If your Rice open house is on one of those dates, get the trailer on the calendar before you order announcements, not after.
If we are already booked for your weekend we will tell you immediately rather than stringing you along, and we will usually know someone who can help.
One quote for the weekend covers the loaded trailer — folding chairs and banquet tables — as one bundle, however many you actually use. A $200 booking deposit reserves the date and comes off the total. Delivery to Rice is separate and quoted by distance — flat-rate delivery applies here.
Fewer than your invite list. Guests come and go across the afternoon, so plan seating for the peak overlap — usually a third to a half of the total. A full trailer covers an open house with 350 to 500 people through the door.
As early as you can. Late May and early June weekends are the busiest of our year and they book months out. Once you know the date, call — a $200 booking deposit reserves it, and it comes off your total.
About 21 miles from Albany, roughly a 30-minute drive. It is an easy haul if you are towing it yourself.
A 2-5/16 inch ball and a vehicle rated to tow an enclosed trailer — most half-ton pickups and full-size SUVs handle it without any trouble. If you are unsure whether your vehicle is up to it, tell us what you drive in the booking form.
Yes. Flat-rate delivery applies to Rice, which is 21 miles from Albany.
Come by Albany and look at it. We would rather you knew what you were getting than guessed from a photo.
Friday is standard for a weekend booking, but if the trailer is free Thursday you can often have it then at no extra charge. It depends who has it before you.
For a whole weekend, we think so, and it is the billing model rather than a discount: companies that price per chair per day multiply by the count and again by the days. We quote the trailer once, for the weekend. Get a quote from anyone else and compare the weekend total, not the daily rate — that is where the difference shows up.
We serve the whole stretch around Rice — here are the closest towns and the county page.
Tell us the date and the headcount. We will confirm whether it is open, usually the same day.
Weekends book first, especially May and June. Send us the date and your headcount and we will come straight back to you on whether it is open.