This is a long review, but several people have asked for my experiences with this model canopy, so here they are.
Let me state that I have never owned a canopy, much less ever erected one before, so many of the things I may write may be obvious, or may be features of all canopies.
The Abccanopy 10-feet By 10-feet Festival Steel Instant Canopy, Commercial Level, with Wheeled Storage Bag, 6 Removable Zipper End Walls, Bonus 4x Weight for $289. There would have been an extra $79 for shipping, but I bought it on a 30-day Amazon Prime trial account and got free shipping. It arrived in 2 days! Here’s a description of the kit from the link above:
Frame: Black Powder-Coated Rush Resistant Steel frame with 100% nylon mold brackets 1 1/4'' thick Square shaped legs 20% stronger than EZup Express II. Super strength 26mm x 13mm x 1mm truss bars. Sturdy nylon feet with two drilled holes. Smooth and safe push buttons sliders. Market leading 1-year frame warranty. Every spare part stocked
Wheeled Bag: Super Heavy duty roller bag, usually services you more than 3 years, Twice as strong as the EZup roller bag. Top and cover bag sturdy wheels on solid steel axle for easy portability. 4 Formed rubber handles for lifting 1 formed rubber handle for rolling Reinforced base plate heavy-duty zipper e-z glide wheels, Market leading six months’ warranty
Canopy Materials: 500 Denier Polyester with PU lining, 100% Waterproof. Heat Sealed Seams .100% Waterproof. Reinforced stress points where peaks poles meet canopy. Large 2" Velcro along the underside of canopy to attach walls
Side Wall Material: 150 Denier Polyester with PU lining. Multiple Velcro tabs to strap around frame legs. Large 2" Velcro to connect side wall to canopy . Zip connectors to join side walls together Side walls can attach independently - use as many or as few as you need
Package includes: 1 x 10ft by 10ft pop up canopy (100%waterproof), 4 x Sandbags, 1 x 10ft Mesh wall ,1 x 10ft Half wall ,3 x 10ft Sidewalls ,1 x 10ft door wall, 1 x Roller Carrying bag , 4 x Ropes ,4 x Stakes (total weight 62lbs)
It’s a complete package. Inside the shopping box, the ABC came in a large roller bag, 5.5 ft long. The bag was made of a very thick and sturdy material, and had a 3ft by 5 in storage pocket on one side. It rolled fine on concrete and carpet, but with only two small wheels, I don’t know how it would perform on grass or over curbs. There are two carrying handles though, which should make it easy for a pair of people to carry it, weighing only 30 lbs. each. Using one side-handle makes it easy to stand upright, then twist it to go in another direction, something I really appreciated. The collapsed canopy frame was both easy to extract and to put back in the bag.
The canopy material was very heavy, 500D on the top and 150 on the sides. I was attracted to this canopy because it advertised waterproof seams. Indeed, all the seams were double stitched, and those of the canopy had a layer of tape over the length of each of them on the inside that was heat sealed in place. This seemed like much better protection than just having double stitching, but I haven’t tried the canopy yet. The Velcro straps were well attached, and the nylon zippers that attached the sides worked well.
The ABC was heavy and extremely well built. The shipping weight came in at 63 pounds because of the steel, not aluminum, frame. It’s very sturdy, the joints seem solid, it uses bolts and nuts, not rivets, and the various release buttons are easy to use, not the standard ‘ball in a hole’ you see so often. I was very pleased.
It was relatively easy to assemble, and would have been much more so had either my wife or I ever erected a canopy before. The canopy had an extra flap of 500D that sat on the top parts of the frame when it was in place. On top of the joints of the truss bars, etc. Seemed very good.
The first real problem came in ‘lifting the frame by expanding the truss bars until the frame is fully expanded.’ In actuality, I think this really meant squeezing together the center joint of the top truss bar on one side with that of the bottom bar, causing the canopy legs to spread and the center pole to rise until everything snapped into place. If there was another way to interpret this, I didn’t find it. But still there was no leverage to manually compress the joints and make the canopy expand. The canopy had a Velcro strap in the middle of each side that was intended to hold the canopy to the frame. I found that it could be used to pull the two joints together and thus raise the top. I’m concerned that this would put more stress on the strap than was intended, so I plan to try using shipping straps to lever the two joints of the truss bars together until they snap in place, then remove the straps. If you know a better or more conventional way, I’d love to hear it.
Next came raising the frame to its full height, which was simple and easy with the leg locks.
The canopy came with 4 weight bags, but they were only 20lb bags, so I bought a set of 4-40lb bags, LARGE Canopy Weight Bags (40 lbs.) for Portable Canopy, Instant Canopy, E-Z Up Instant Shelter - SET of 4 Pop Up Canopy Weights - HEAVY DUTY, Weather from Amazon for $40. These had zipper tops instead of Velcro, but what I really liked was that the inside was lined, and the outside had handles to carry them by. That would provide 40 lbs. of weight on each leg, and with the 20lb bags the canopy came with, up to 60 on each leg. The frame also came with rings at the top to attach the included stakes and lines from. I suppose the weight bags could be attached to the rings as well as wrapped around the legs.
A breeze did come by while we were doing all this, and the canopy lifted a bit, which made me think that attaching the weights was the first thing to do after starting to raise the frame. But raising the frame caused the legs to expand, and weights would fight against this, so I remain a little confused on this point.
It came time to hang up the artwork. I intended to use Stas Smartspring hooks with their Perlon cord and loops from picturehangingsolutions.com to hang the art, photos on stretched canvas, a solution that would allow me to easily move them from side to side and up and down, but when the time came, I found I had no place to hang anything from! I suppose I could have hung the pieces from the truss-bars, with tape holding the lines in place from the rear side of the bars, but that seemed a poor solution. I’m left with the question – how do people hang their art? From what? Are Staybars the solution?
I read on this forum once that you should practice setting up your display before you go to a show. I heartily agree!
Taking the canopy down was quick and painless. The panels came off with ease, and the buttons that held the frame taut were large and easy to use.
I’ve posed several questions here, and hope people can take the time to answer them.
I’m looking forward to using this canopy in a show situation.
--David Perry Lawrence
PS - It’s just now April 16, the first chance I have had to try to put up the canopy! Snow, rain and wind here outside Milwaukee didn’t help. I’ve been hoping to get a booth shot so I could finally enter some shows. Maybe next week….
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