IL doesn't have the best weather reputation. We were at Long Grove IL, beautiful charming and peaceful suburb surrounded by golf courses. A dark cloud appears out of the blue (or the black) and a 40 minute storm took couple tents. We are doing our best trying to be creative to be able to make it in hard times. We don't need to add storms to our shows, and why do they arrive on weekends and not week days??? mmm...I took some pics that explain why is better to invest in a good canopy. No need to to type words. Oh, and after that damn storm came on Saturday at 10:30am , a beautiful sun came out and stayed for the whole show.
PS...What are those cables doing connected to the pole during a storm???? That is the question...
Comments
Warren, could explain about the weights being at the bottom a bit more?
If the weights are touching the ground, the amount of force on the legs is reduced and the frame is more prone to getting moved from wind. In the scheme of things, the 30 or 40 pounds of weight hanging on the corner is insignificant compared to what the accumulating water will weigh. A gallon of water weighs about 8 pounds rounded off. It is easy to accumulate 10 - 15 gallons in a corner if the top is not attached correctly wich is going to be 80-120 pounds very quickly in a heavy downpour. That will bring down a tent much quicker particularly as the weight is also stressing the framework. A hanging tent weight is a vertical stress and the legs can handle that easier than a lateral stress.
I had an old Elaine Martin slant roof booth years ago. Worst investment I ever made. I was at Uptown in Minneapolis with that misbegotten tent when a very heavy storm came through overnight. I was walking up the street in the morning when several people asked me if I had the waterlogged tent. I get there and see what they were talking about. The water collected in the rear corner and had sagged the top inward to the point where it was about 4 feet off the ground. I tried to push upwards and dump it, but couldn't even budge the thing. The weight was tremendous. I tried to find a hose and siphon it out, but no such luck. I was able to borrow a couple of 5 gallon paint cans, and slit a hole in the tarp to drain it out into the buckets. It took over 20 plus buckets to drain the water out. That meant the weight on the tent was over 800 pounds. The center line set of poles across the roof were bent in a rather nice caternary curve which surprised me, but the good thing was that that reinstalling the pole pointing upwards, the roof would then shed water much easier.
The issue is not so much the vetical thrust of weight, but the lateral forces on a tent frame. The lateral force can come from the wind, and hence the need to stabilize legs with Sta-Bars or something similar, or with rigid display panels. The other lateral force can come from pooling water. My old tent had no flexible frame. An EZ-Up is prone to failure if the scissor joints are shoved out of line, as will happen if water pools in the corners. I've seen some pooling happen to others, and had it happen to me a couple of times, and it's easy for 20 gallons of water to collect there which is going to be 160 pounds easily. That's where the damage occurs, not from 35 pound weights hanging from the braces next to a leg.
Water collecting on the top is one of the biggest issues and as Carla knows can bring down your tent. And good advise to secure your weights. I am amazed at how many people don't do that when all it takes are some bungy cords to keep them from swinging in the wind! Swinging weights can hurt you, the booth, your neighbor's booth, and customers!
The first pic is how the weight of the water broke the food tent. The second pic is how my tent broke 3 weeks ago, same thing, because the weight of the water. Another artist added clamps to his EZ up awning, he kind of clamped the awning to the frame, it didn't look pretty but that prevented the water to stay, making it slide, hope this makes sense
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