Why hello! Welcome to The Prop Factory, where we make props, signs and furniture from recycled materials. Specifically made for the best of events, our artisan props are cultivated here in the heart of Devon. All our products are created from scratch by our team of skilled makers or bought secondhand then restored to meet our very high standards. We mostly love to work with wood and textiles, though occasionally you will find the odd bit of something more – we just can’t resist if we find something interesting to use! What you will never find are nasty chemicals or heavy pollutants. Our props are assembled by hand and decorated using a mix of hand painting, sewing, surface design and print techniques.
Have a look at our weird and wonderful items that will decorate your event most brilliantly. We build both props to buy and props to hire.
We know our customers like their props to be a little bit unique, so we purposely build them with the idea that when they’re gone, they’re gone - we won’t be building them again. To keep our props original, we work on one-off or small production run items that are ready to ship right away. We love this kind of work as it means we can use all kinds of ‘found’ oddments and really go to town with our imagination. Expect to see all sorts of reclaimed furniture remade into completely random things. We’ve also gathered a collection of unique and useful things to sell specifically for events, parties and weddings. This collection is a real assortment of ‘je ne sais quoi’, to put it mildly.
This is our permanent range of exclusive props to buy. Mostly themed signs and flat pack event décor, these props still carry the quirky and original touches that we love. The artwork for these props and signs is a combination of hand painting with the modern marvels of printing. These props are made to order so please contact us for lead times.
Just to note, we don’t sell the props that we hire, so our hire inventory really is unique. We have a curated range of select items across a range of traditional themes. Our true love lies in the colours and styles of vintage fairground and circus so you will find plenty of these, together with a fair smattering of the great British summer fete, end-of-the-pier seaside fun, farm and festival on the side. As you might expect, there are one or two oddities that we can’t bear to part with – look out for Brum, our authentic little vintage car and a truly giant vintage-style compass. There are, of course, games galore – from the ever-so-traditional coconut shy to mini crazy golf – and our giant letters – illuminated or faux topiary - which never fail as a perfect photo opportunity.
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A little bit more about us… We have an 8,000 sq. ft warehouse of wonders curated especially to produce props to a ‘hire’ quality. This means that unlike off-the-shelf products, quick knock-ups or cheap fibreglass imports, we built with events in mind. Our products have longevity, durability (aka ‘bash-ability’) and are easy to transport and store. They are super easy to set up using as few components per prop as possible and no tools needed. Instructions are provided to suit even the most confused crew member. Plonk a sub-contractor in front of our products (or a helpful guest if it’s your wedding), waft our set up instructions under their nose and leave them on autopilot. Job done. Purpose building our stock for events means we can prioritise public health and safety right from the start. Risk assessments galore, we know event health and safety is a whole different kettle of fish.On top of the technical considerations, we care about the environment too. Most of our props are made from recycled materials. We don’t use any nasty chemicals, we use hand tools wherever possible, and all our non-reclaimed wood is FSC certified sustainable wood. Marvellous. An unexpected plus point of all this work, for our customers at least, is that it is more expensive to produce products to a ‘hire’ quality even with all that recycled material, therefore we never, ever sell them, so they really are 100% exclusive to us.
Prop making re-imagined. Using recycled materials reverse-engineers the design process. We create with what we’ve got rather than designing first and sourcing our raw material post-design. We are collectors, reclamation yard searchers, salvagers, skip divers, and just a team of waste-not-want-nots. We collect gubbins, oddities, broken furniture, pretty wood, recycled materials, literally anything we can get our hands on that could tangibly be made into a beautiful prop. There is a tremendous amount of serendipity in our design process. And without sounding like a total cliché, it really does push the boundaries of our prop design. This means our stock is a mingling of styles that mostly err on the ‘interesting’ end of the spectrum. From one-off wonders and OMGs to Wows and What the feck?s, hire some conversation pieces from us! We also have event essentials in the form of oodles of practical seating and tables, plus vintage sofas and furniture with little quirks of heritage design aplenty. So rest assured we have jolly unique solutions for your event conundrums.
Established in 2011, we’ve got the swing of the events industry now, so here are our promises to our customers:
Unique products. Got that one in the bag for sure.
Blooming competitive prices. You don’t get what you pay for, you get more! Our products haven’t been dragged across a field, chucked in a van, chucked back in another van and handed over to the next customer, oh no siree! We take pride in our products and look after them. Of course being vintage inspired, and made from recycled materials and reclaimed furniture, they are full of character and charm. But that doesn’t mean unclean, tatty, broken, and unloved. They are super-unique, sustainable and very well looked after. Basically, hiring from us is like paying for a bacon butty and getting a gourmet steak sandwich. Winner, winner, steak for dinner.
Minimal moaning from our drivers. Let’s face it, no logistics department is utterly moan free, especially for events with tricky delivery times and less than easy access to some venues. But we’ve chosen a pretty good bunch of willing staff and take the challenges of logistics in our stride.
Customer service. Well that’s top notch… for an events company. Unlike a wedding planner we can’t promise to become your bestie, and chat endlessly about the difference between teal and turquoise. But what we can offer you is transparency. You ask us a question and we will tell no lies. We don’t beat around the bush about prices or pretend we can fulfil your requirements when we can’t. If anything should go wrong, we work hard to very quickly correct things so your event can still go ahead without a hitch.
Easy booking via our up-to-date with our all bells and whistles, custom booking system. No floof. Our aficionados of pleasant conversation will provide plenty of human contact too.
An out-of-hours contact number as standard. #justsaying
Free Proposals, new prop design concepts and an in-house stylist to help with your design brief.
We have some sustainability, community and charity credentials too. An all-round good egg of a company. Some trumpet tooting on our part there.
So give us a call! Don’t delay, do it today.
Now for some obligatory phrases and generic listing of themes, towns and types of events we work in to help us out on the website that rhymes with boogle. You don’t really need to read this part, it might seem a bit odd. Honestly, don’t.
If you’re having a circus party in Liverpool we’re your go to guys with tons of props in this theme, hooray! From our handmade ticket booth using a Victorian bed frame and painted in a circus design, to our CIRCUS light up letters with colourful bulbs. We have so much in this theme, enough to decorate your whole venue. The circus theme is hugely popular for staff parties, but we’re not quite sure why that is! If a Christmas goes by without a circus booking for a staff party, it will be a very sad day for us.
Circus theme too crazy for you? Maybe you’re getting married in Devon, or even deepest, darkest Cornwall? Just mentioning we also cover Somerset and Dorset for weddings too. We cover the whole of the UK, but the aforementioned counties seem to be where most of our furniture hire and prop hire bookings come from.
For those of you who have ventured this far you’re either keen or there is some information you can’t find. Give us a call on 01392 493 660 if you like, or we have some quick links at the bottom of this page.
Happy Prop Customers
Martine O'Donnell - BBC Children in Need
"We approached the guys at the Prop Factory quite last minute for a large scale BBC shoot. Not only did they turn around a range of elaborate, custom made props in a matter of days but they offered up suggestions and solutions. The team are a delight to work with, the shoot looked amazing and I will be recommending them to my colleagues across the BBC. Cannot recommend enough!"
Richard Spencer - Heart FM
"Just wanted to drop a line to say a huge THANK YOU from all of us for everything this weekend. The hall looked amazing and I’ve had hundreds of comments from people saying how beautiful and Christmassy it looked. That’s all down to you, Adam and everyone at Prop Factory! We couldn’t have done this event without you!"
Xabi Garcés - Scarlet Entertainment
Fantastic professionals, easy to work with and always happy to help our company (Scarlett Entertainment) every time that we ask them. Hope you have an amazing year because you deserve it! Kind regards
Sarah Precious - Sandy Park
Fantastic service and communication from Carmen and the team at the Prop Factory. Thank you for loaning us the 4x coffee tables and ‘MOS’ light up letters for the Sandy Park Ministry of Sound event. The VIP Suite looked top notch!A fantastic range of props that are on offer. I’d thoroughly recommend the Prop Factory should you be looking for that extra special touch for a wedding, party or corporate event. Thank you once again :)
