I just did a festival over the weekend and had to deal with some of the worst winds I have every experienced.
There were a few art vendors near me that actually lost their tents
Luckily, I managed to save mine and only lost one metal print.
Here is what I did…
- Tent weights. I have a 50 lb unopened bag of sand stuffed in each of my weight bags. The bags come with a ratchet strap. I attach the ratchet to the loop of my canopy. This holds the canopy down, which prevents it from becoming a sail. See the pics below. Here is the link to the bags that I use https://getundercover.com/product/gravity-tube-anchors-best-way-to-anchor/
2. It was a 3 day show. Before leaving Fri night, I lowered my tent
3. Stabilizer bars. Using these bars helps to stabilize your tent. I use “stay bar” that accompany the Flourish mesh walls that I use. However, Euromax makes stabilizer bars. You can find them here https://www.eurmax.com/pop-up-canopy-rail-bar.html
4. The next day, I added an additional 30 lbs to the feet of my tent with leg weight plates. Even with the 50 holding the canopy down and the extra 30 on the feet, there were some gusts still slightly picking my tent up and pushing it. I took the 50 lb weight bags and placed them on top of the leg weights. This helped a lot!
5. My art. Even thought my pieces were hung securely, I added more protection. On the most expensive pieces, I used extra heavy duty zip ties. These hold up to 200 lbs. I ran them under the hanging wires and secured at the top rail of my tent. On my other pieces, I used bungee cords. I secured the end of each bungee and ran them in front of the pieces and attached the other end to the other end of the tent. This helped keep them in place When the wind came through and threatened to knock them off the hooks, the bungees held them in place. Before I did this, I had lost one metal print that flew off the s hooks and smashed to the ground. The below, is part of a video that I did that shows the bungee set up
Also, please note that the quality of the tent that you have makes a difference too!! I use an Undercover Professional model.
I hope this can be useful for someone!
Peace & love
~Tiffany