Fridge Hire for Events: Which Type and How Many?

For current stock and pricing, see our fridge hire page.

If you are planning a bar, hospitality space, or temporary catering kitchen, fridge capacity affects service speed from the first drinks run to the last restock. You do not book refrigeration for its own sake. You book it because bottled drinks need to stay cold, food prep needs a controlled holding space, and staff need a layout that lets them reach stock without blocking the whole service area. Expo Hire carries several fridge formats, and each one suits a different event layout, service style, and stock pattern.

Start with the format, not the headline capacity

Fridge hire for events usually falls into three broad types. Bar fridges sit under a counter and keep stock close to the service point. Display fridges put bottles and cans behind glass so guests or front-of-house staff can see what is inside at a glance. Counter fridges add a work surface on top, which helps when the bar or kitchen sits in a temporary structure and every bit of flat space matters. Those categories look similar on a stock list, but they play different roles once the build starts.

Think about stock flow as well as total volume

Capacity planning starts with one question: what will staff take out of the fridge during the event, and how fast will they need to replace it? The answer changes the type and number of units you book. A small indoor reception with one service point may work from a few compact units loaded with pre-chilled bottles. A busy festival bar or a high-volume drinks station needs more than headline litres. It needs enough shelf space, enough door access, and enough reserve stock so staff do not spend the whole service period moving crates around instead of serving guests.

The source figures in this guide give a useful baseline. A standard bar fridge holds around 120 to 150 standard 330ml bottles. A 150-litre gastro fridge holds around 100 to 120 330ml cans or 60 standard wine bottles. For a 100-person drinks reception lasting two hours, one 150-litre unit can handle pre-chilled stock. If drinks arrive warm on the day, that same headline capacity does not tell the full story because the fridge then has to chill as well as hold. Some event teams deal with that by adding extra capacity so the stock can rotate rather than pile up in one crowded cabinet.

Airflow matters inside the cabinet

Fridges need space around the stock so the cold air can move. Crowded shelves reduce airflow, and slower airflow slows the cooling cycle. That is why a bottle count on paper can look fine while a fridge on site struggles once the bar team fills every shelf edge to edge. If you know the event will run on fast restocking and quick turnover, leave room for air movement and room for staff hands. A cabinet that looks half full during setup can perform better than one packed solid from the first crate.

Power and positioning shape the setup

Most Expo Hire commercial fridge units run from a standard 13-amp plug, so you do not need 3-phase power for standard fridge hire. That makes refrigeration easier to place in bars, back-of-house zones, and temporary kitchens where the power plan already has to cover lighting, tills, coffee machines, and catering kit. Even so, the sockets need to sit in the right places. A bar fridge that sits behind a counter still needs a socket within 2 metres, and the cable route needs to stay clear of the service path rather than cutting across it.

Cooling time changes your delivery plan

Expo Hire delivers refrigeration equipment at ambient temperature. Once the unit lands, you need to give it time to pull down before it starts doing the real job. This guide uses a 4 to 6 hour cooling window before you load drinks into the fridge, and that window matters. If staff load warm stock into a newly powered cabinet, the fridge has to fight the cabinet air temperature and the product temperature at the same time. That slows the whole process and leaves you with stock that feels colder on paper than it does in the hand.

Ice and refrigeration do different jobs

For smaller quantities of bottled drinks, ice buckets and ice delivery can cover the immediate serving need without taking up the footprint of a fridge. That route works when staff serve a short reception, a small table plan, or a limited drinks list. Refrigeration takes over when the event needs a reliable cold-hold point across a longer service period. If the bar runs for 6 or more hours, staff need somewhere to keep reserve stock cold rather than relying on a constant cycle of melting ice and top-ups.

Coverage and booking

Expo Hire covers England and Wales and does not deliver to Scotland or Northern Ireland. At checkout, you can enter the postcode and see the delivery cost for your location. That keeps the refrigeration hire in the same ordering flow as your glassware, furniture, or catering equipment rather than turning it into a separate call-off. If your event uses several categories of equipment, one order also helps the delivery plan because the same booking can cover more of the working setup.

When you book refrigeration, the detail matters. Unit type, power access, load-in timing, and stock pattern all affect how well the setup works on the day. The site lets you check live stock and current pricing, so you can build the order around the dates you actually need rather than guessing what might still sit free later on.