Since I just talked about the recent Gasparilla--and high winds--I thought a little basics primer would be of use to you newbies.
Oldtimers who have been around know what to do.
In the 38 years of doing shows I have been blown down once, and lost work and had booth damage, and that was because a hurricane hit our show in Vero Beach at 4 am in the morn with winds in excess of 75 mph.
Anyways, here are the basics. Follow them and most times you will get out intact and undamaged. You gotta work quick, no dilly-dallying.
First off, get both the front and the rear side curtains out of the way, unzip them. They are just wind-catchers.
Undo your front and rear awnings if you have any, get them on the ground, quickly. Fold all this stuff up later. You want your booth down and work out quickly.
OK. Now take all the art off the walls and package it up. Same if you had art on pedestals or shelves. Get it into the van quickly. Most times this can be accomplished 15-30 minutes. Things don't have to be perfectly packaged. You can do that later. You want things down so if the booth takes a quick wind hit you don't lose work.
Next, and this applies to 2-D artists or any artist who uses fabric over their metal panels. Get them off quickly. They are sails and catch the wind. With them off the air will flow quickly thru instead of building lift and tension on your structure.
If you have solid wall panels, like ProPanels or door sections. Get them down on the ground. Reduce your wind resistance.
Now comes the roof which can be tricky in windy times. If you can get help one or two people who will be able to hold on to corner poles while you are undoing the fasteners to your roof.
Important. Don't undo your weights or tiedowns until roof is off. Take all the help you can get.
When faced with a choice of whether to take roof off back to front or in reverse, think about wind direction. Undo the end that goes with the wind. If you try to go against it, it will be very difficult--too much vector forces from the wind will make it impossible to roll back your roof.
Get it on the ground fast. Now you have no wind resistance and the booth structure will come down without bending parts.
Now, take the time to fold covers and put them away. Same goes for the roof.
If you follow this method you will get out of most windy shows (even in gusts up to 25 mph) intact and undamaged. After all that is the only result you want.
Print this out and save it in your van, you never know when it is going to come in handy. Fair weather friends and mucho sales. Nels.
Comments
Melanie, thank you so much for this thoughtful answer. You've helped a lot! Great info about putting the tent together correctly the first time. Also about the 15-min consult on display. Someone said to me once, in terms of display, that if I'm not willing to invest in my work, why would anyone else be? Again, many thanks. Carrie
@ Carrie J.
I have a Caravan = ez up, and grids. I use this set up for wholesale shows and used it for my first few art shows. That set up is a tank IMO. Wholesale shows are very different, the buyers don't need the fancy set ups, the locations are not very nice, the time frame is usually longer(= guaranted bad weather one of the days), and they are not artist friendly. Everyone is a vendor. So I don't use my trimline and propanels for those shows. I have propanels and a trimline for art fairs. This weekend some of my trimline bars got bent but it is very cheap to get replacements from flourish. I saw lots of mangled propanels that may or may not be fixed. The Showoffs did about as well in the wind as the trimlines IMO. Some of the Showoffs weren't put together 100% properly. That can happen when one is rushing and it is early morning set up. Once they are up it is hard to fix a tent not put together correctly and if the weather turns you are SOL. The mesh panels seem much easier to deal with then the propanels, but I have a good friend who has mesh and a show director came up to him and gave him a 15 minute consult about why his work needed to have a better background for sales and for entry into shows. Now this artist had to spend more $$$ to get mesh covers. In the end I think the time and $$ may be the same as just getting the panels. It is a hard call and you have to make the decision on what would work for you. The propanels are carpet. Who the heck hangs work in their homes on carpeted walls? Still that seems to be the best option for my work at art fairs. I have seen some booths with mesh that get wonderful glows on the work when the sun hits. The propanels can make it hot and dark in your booth. I have seen some beautiful DYI walls made out of raw silk and paint, but I am not taking that on.
Hi, Nels and everyone, this is great info, which I will try to keep in mind. A question for you all - I need to upgrade my display from my E-Z Up, with metal grids, and am thinking of a Showoff with the taut fabric walls. I've read a lot of the threads here about tents, but wanted to ask again, especially in this wind-driven blog, about people's opinions of Showoff vs., say, Trimline, and fabric panels vs mesh. I am an oil painter who works with a palette knife. Thank you!
Thanks for the wind insight everyone, I never gave it much thought before, but will definatly keep it in mind and take your suggestions to heart. Glad to hear you didn't sustain much damage Sherri. Hope you at least made decent sells having to go thru all that.
I think you're right. Having just that one wall still up, the wind hit it, was directed up (uplift) to the canopy, and pushed it over. I should not have taken the sides down at the same time I was taking panels down. And I also think my method of weighting was flawed...so a combination of the two for sure. Thanks for the feedback!
Another lesson from the pits for the other newbies out there!!
Sherri, I wasn't there, but it sounds like your tent went over because the wind was allowed inside the tent canopy. If your tent sides are securely and tightly zipped down the wind can not get inside the parasail that is your canopy top.
I was across the street from Nels this weekend in lovely Bartow...and luckily, for sake of my pride, Nels was gone before I got a REALLY good lesson (the hard way) on how NOT to tear down a booth in high wind!
We did a great job all day of not only supporting our tent, but also supportin my neighbors tent who was really struggling against the wind. But tear down is when it got us...
Nels advise is right on the money when he talks about getting the fabric covers off the panels. We had done that on three walls...but before we got to the forth wall, we had that quick wind burst and up and over went our tent on the side that still had the fabric panels!! We have been using the tent feet and set 50# on each foot...plenty of weight but definitely the wrong method! The feet slid right out between the pavement and the weights.
Luckily no damage to my 2D work and extremely little damage to my tent! But it was emotionally devastating to this newbie!!
I did go back and brave the winds again on Sunday...but put up only 1/2 the panels and work, no covers on my panels and more tie downs and weights than I could count. The wind still gave us a scare several times, but all in all we learned ALOT. And can give thanks to God and great neighbors that it was not worse.
I'm not sure it's a good idea to take the tent sides down first. While they are a surface to catch the wind, they also act to deflect the wind from getting inside the booth and creating all sorts of havoc. With the sides down the wind can some in and beat against the display panels and fill up the top of tent and Lift!
My strategy when packing up in bad wind is to zip up tight, take down the awnings, get the work safely off the walls, get the panels on the ground, lower the tent as low as possible while still weighted, get the valuable work in the truck, and finally take apart the tent.
If the wind is severe, like in a passing storm, zip up, get away, get inside and let it pass.
Thanks for sharing this info, Nels. I am sure this will help many who haven't had to tear down their tents in a panic yet.
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