When a festival requires a certain type of tent or a certain amount of weight on your tent legs, remember this video.
It's from outside the Rose Bowl in southern California, but shows dramatically what can happen when your tent becomes airborne.
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I saw this video and couldn't believe my eyes. Tents always need to be weighted no matter what the weather forecast. This video is downright scary.
This is exactly one of the reasons we have insurance.
But watching the Bounce House become airborne is something that's happening. Last summer one of those became airborne by the wind and there were children inside.
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The old New Eastside Artworks show ran by Cynthia Quick was a show repeatedly plagued by terrible storms, including a Hundred Year thunderstorm. This was just off Michigan Avenue and Randolph in Chicago, actually on Stetson and leading up to the Chicago Athletic Club. The bad weather wasn't enough, but we were also in a vortex with several skyscrapers adjacent to us. At the time I had heavy display panels tied to the booth frame, the booth was screwed into 45 lb concrete blocks, and the rear of the booth was tied down to a storm grate and a parking meter.
Several booths were caught in high winds and went sailing at different years. One Lightdome wasn't weighted enough and it went up in the air and over the railing next to the Athletic club, dropping down a good 75-100 feet to the parking lot below. Another booth down at the end of the show close to Michigan simply vanished and was last seem blowing down Michigan Street, never to be found. Another artist across from me was using Patio blocks for weights, and was in her booth when it started to lift. She grabbed the struts, but it was still lifting. Several of us heard her screaming and ran to grab the booth which was hovering about a foot in the air. All of grabbed the booth and wrestled it back to the ground. I had a couple spare concrete blocks and brought those over and tied them down. That could have gone badly for her but for some luck.
The video shown above is a scary one, as those tent legs could have easily speared someone had they been in the way. I wonder about damage to the cars as the tent owner is responsible for that also. We just took a car in for collision repair that looked relatively minor but is going to be between $3600 and $5400. If your tent gouges the metal and paint on a car, that's going to be a pricey one.
I always take along dog stakes and heavy ratcheting straps and will use those in preference to the concrete pipe weights that I use also. I'm considering using multiple sand bags strapped to the lower Sta-Bars so I can get something more like 80 lbs effectively on each leg.
Thanks for uploading this video, Camryn. It is a huge warning about the dangers around our business.
I remember being at a show when word came "take cover!" We fled and came back to smashed tents.
Would you also post this in the video section on the lower left hand of the site so it will be more easily accessed as time goes by? Thanks.
We saw this happen at Hammonassette Beach, CT. We were at an event in our camper (which was unaffected0 but watched helplessly as a huge tent went over and tugged at its stakes, while other smaller tents took flight, weights and all. The large tent had been double staked, but still managed to pull itsself several feet. The smaller tents wound up in bushes about a football field away and were twisted into unusable messes. I have lost only one tent and it did not loose its stakes. Instead, it was shredded because of a metal frame I was using for display. After that, I set everything low so that I could lower my tent if news of a storm came by. I would then cris-cross it with ropes and additional stakes. Haven't lost a tent since. This year, I made the cement weights out of PC pipe that someone posted here earlier in the year. I am seeing more of them as time goes by so they must work well. What a tragedy for the folks at the event in the video. If you watch closely, one man tried to grab a passing tent and was thrown off to the side. Fortunately, he appeared to be okay, but he could have been badly hurt.