Craft Fair This Weekend

[GermantownCandles]

What do you find is the best way to secure my 10x10 tent to the ground? It's been pretty rainy and windy for the last couple of weeks and I want to make sure it won't go anywhere if there are any big gusts of wind ( praying for a beautiful weekend! ) As if right now, it says there is a chance of rain on Saturday :-( The tent will be in the grass... Thanks everyone!

[LovelyLathers]

I do several things. I have sandbags in each corner and i stake the poles to the ground if it is allowed, make sure you check first as sometimes there are underground wires or sprinkler systems. If it is really bad, my set up allows me to tie my tables to the tent which helps also. I also put the swimming noodles in each corner between the top and pole joints, the prevents wind bellowing out the top and helps the rain from pooling it the middle.

[NaturallyTru]

I can't picture the swimming noodles. How are they put up? Horizontal or vertical?

I'd definitely stake the tent along with sandbags (or gallon jugs filled with sand/cement/water). Winds here this spring were horrible and my lawn swing had my tent sand bags on it and it still blew over.

[LovelyLathers]

The noodles are horizontal. they go in curved so the ends are pointed down like an arc, the cross beams hold them in place. I will see if i have a picture i can post of how they look. They work great.

[LuminousBoutique]

really cool way to make weights... if you have the time.. is to buy 4" PVC pipe and cut it into 2' sections, screw handles (like kitchen cabinet handles) into endcaps and epoxy one end cap on, then fill with either sand, or even better, concrete. Then epoxy the other endcap on. Make 4 of them, you can spraypaint them any color to match your booth. I just painted mine white so they would fade away. You can use the handles to carry them and also to tie onto them, but I simply ziptie them to each leg using the big strong zippies, and cut them off at the end of the show. I tried using sandbags, blocks, so on in the past and people trip on them. This way they are very hard to run into, you'd have to try. lol

[Candybee]

I have cats so I use the empty plastic litter jugs. I just filled mine with play sand from the hardware store and anchor them with rachet straps. Didn't cost me a dime to make and they hold up better than many weights I have seen. At least me tent has never blown away. I don't know where I put my tent stakes cause I haven't needed them since I started using the litter jugs as weights.

[DebM]

I did a lot of farmers markets and festivals in a *very* windy area. If allowed, the very best way to anchor for us was to get the dog stakes that look like a big screw and screw them into the ground, and use ratcheted straps. This was really good for overnight festivals on grass. For farmers markets or not-so-windy areas, LuminousBoutique's set-up is very popular. They are easy to pack, easy to handle. In our area, they tend to be about 3' long and hooked to the top of the frame to hang by a bungie which stretches enough for the pipe to just touch the ground. I've often wondered if the weight wouldn't warp or wear out the frame, but we're all using the really heavy E-Z ups, and it doesn't seem to.