An extending range
Having started with a modular structure that can be erected for event management, Big Red Barn has branched out into other structures such as homes and is eyeing the US market
H is experience as venue operations manager at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park during London 2012 was Donal Byrne’s inspiration for a range of modular structures that are now used for everything from wedding venues to living spaces.
“We had over 1,200 marquees and they broke my heart,” he explains. “Every day, my phone was hopping in relation to various problems, weather damage being the biggest of them.”
When Byrne returned to Co Mayo in 2013 he designed his first ‘big red barn’ and set up a company of the same name a year later to focus on event management.
The barn’s selling points include its portability and the fact that it can be assembled and taken down again in a matter of hours.
In 2014, Byrne won the title of Mayo’s Best Young Entrepreneur. The prize money was used to build the ‘little white chapel’, which is aimed at the weddings market and can accommodate up to 100 people.
Following an appearance on RTÉ’s Dragon’s Den in 2014, the company saw a spike in its corporate business and started working with companies like Lidl, as well as renting out its structures at major events and music festivals around Ireland.
A grant from the Local Enterprise Office in Co Mayo allowed Byrne to start manufacturing in Ballyhaunis. “That gave us great control and better opportunity to prototype as we could now do everything ourselves,” he says.
“All of our structures are made from steel frames and cladded with a pressure-treated Scandinavian pine from sustainable forests.”
The company can now manufacture any kind of modular building, according to Byrne. In recent weeks, for example, it launched a fully insulated, pre-wired home with A+ double glazed windows and doors. Supplied in 4.8 metre panels that slot together and are delivered on a 45ft trailer, the house can be put together in a few hours.
Prices for the homes, which are constructed to order, range from €12,000 to €30,000 depending on the specification. The company is in the process of getting the CE Mark and ISO 9000 and, if successful, plans to tender for local authority home-building contracts.
A prototype for temporary buildings to be used during the construction of a new nuclear power plant Britain has also been developed. “The plant is on about 400 acres and they need their construction buildings to be modular. They’re happy with the prototype and we’ve just submitted our tender price,” Byrne explains.
The UK market accounts for an increasing proportion of the company’s business. A partnership set up there last year has already supplied events like Top Gear and Reading Festival. And Byrne’s sights are now on the US market. “We feel we have a good fit for the franchise profile in America,” he says.
Big Red Barn currently employs six full-time staff and Byrne hopes to double that in the next year. He says the business has been growing at a rate of between 350% and 500% a year so far. “And all projections and our business plan have gone exactly as planned.”
“All of our structures are made from steel frames and cladded with a pressure-treated Scandinavian pine from sustainable forests”