Hi Y'all,
So I bit the bullet and decided to buy a EZ-Up ES100S to start out with. Most shows won't even allow you to apply w/o a tent shot and want to see if I'll be accepted. Didn't wish to spend a bunch of money if I don't make a go of this. My first show with the tent is this coming weekend and they are predicting chance of t-storms. Oh joy!
Sta-Bars, lower, are on there way to me, as I saw many suggest them here to stabilize tent more. :)
I looked over my options on AFI to secure my tent. While all were good, I've thought of another option and would like input on it. Have opted to get 4 deck blocks (ea. about 50lbs, yes they are going to kill me to carry lol). Decided a good idea was to securely bolt the tent legs to the blocks. As a back up, have ratchet straps to tie down tent, if it were to move or a bolt lets loose for one reason or another.
The one thing I'm concerned about is the tent walls being about 6" or so (haven't measured height of inner block yet, so guessing here) off the ground. Since the tent only has legs that adjust one way, extended/not extended, wondering how to bring walls to ground level. Perhaps heavy duty clamps to hold partially extended legs, plus ratchet straps to ensure tent doesn't lift to extended position?
With the chance of heavy rain at times, I bought a 12 x 12 tarp to put down. Will bring the extra 2' up inside the walls to allow rain and/or flowing water to go underneath to hopefully keep inside walking area dry. At least somewhat dry and of course will secure tarp so no one will trip over it.
I saw if wind or storm gets bad to lower tent which I will do. Though I would love to hear you input or different suggestions on what I have planned thus far. Thanks!
~ Charly
Replies
Well yesterday I set up my ES100S EZ-up tent with Flourish lower Sta-bars for the first time at my first outdoor show. Since everything came on Thursday, I didn't get the chance to set it all up prior to the show. This newbie in her late 50's was impressed with the tent. I took it out of the bag, set the tent on far rear corner, lifted it to put weight on that leg and stretched it out. The tarp made it a tad difficult to open, but not that bad.
Next came the LED battery operated lights that I bought to put in the upper cross members. Needed to wire and attach everything before I put the tent up completely. So I was crawling around under the canopy to get everything put on correctly. At least I hope, but I'll find out when I take down the tent as the lights stay on the framework and just need to unplug the extension wire/batt pack.
My tent has a tall single bar that lifts up the peak, with cross members at what I would term as ceiling level. Meaning there is nothing from the peak down and I hope that will prove not to hold water, since there's no place to put swim noodles to make the water runoff. Once I took everything out of the box, I thought, 'There's no way these are going to light up this entire tent!' Yet I attached everything, put in the batteries (8 - D cell) and plug it up. The lights all worked, which was a good thing, tho was still very skeptical they would produce the light I wanted.
Since I never set everything before, I did do things a bit wrong. Thus needed help to set the tent legs on the heavy 50# deck blocks I got to hold it down. I didn't have time to put anchors in the blocks to bolt the tent to it, so only ratchet straps are holding it, but boy is it solid. Tho pretty sure I'll get upper Sta-bars before the next outdoor show. :) The wind gusted up to about 20 mph and the tent didn't move. Just have to figure out what to do about the walls since they won't close tightly at the bottom due to the blocks and they flap in the wind. Have a few thoughts though before the next show. :)
As the sun began to set, I was a bit anxious about the lights. Fearing my tent would be too dark and no other options available to me while at the show. I plugged in the battery pack and thought no way when it gets really dark is this going to work. But as darkness fell, my tent was lit up brighter than I could've hoped for. 4 - 2' long or so 1/4 wide LED strips produced the light I needed and then some. So thankful as I didn't wish to carry around a marine battery to light the tent. 8 D batteries is so much less to carry and besides, I have no more room for a bulky, heavy battery in my Camry. lol
I had ran out of time to build the walls to hang my photography, but pretty sure the lights will do a good job. If not then I'll just get more! :)
It seems there's a chance we'll get a bit of rain today and tomorrow the storms might move in. Guess my first show will tell me if I made the right decisions or not. I heard last year storms destroyed most of the tents. YIKES! It's no wonder as many I saw were set up without any anchors/weights!! Really? Not entirely sure why anyone would put up a canopy or tent without weights or at least good rope/stakes. Now my greatest fear isn't that my tent will take off in a storm anymore, but somebody's canopy/tent will fly into and destroy mine.... :(
That's why we have insurance.
One thing most people don't realize about canopies is the fact that during wind the sides become sails. It's the sides that can cause the tent to move. Second is the canopy top itself. That's another reason I have a ceiling. It doesn't allow the wind to get up and under the canopy top. It's amazing what a $15 white 10x10 tarp can do.
We do a tarp in our tent at outdoor shows. On top of that we put Astroturf and secure it at the front of the tent with some stakes. The stakes are actually used for Christmas lights that go along a sidewalk. They easily go into the ground and come out easily. We reuse them and have lasted a number of shows, can't remember how many exactly. This prevents tripping over the Astroturf as customers enter our tent.
I can't adequately address the rest of your questions as that is dh's area of expertise.
Thanks Cindy! I plan on getting a turf for my tent, just ran out of time for this weekend's show :)