I went to set up the marquee the day before the show and it wasn't particularly windy. It had started to rain, but that is always a guarantee when i'm putting up a marquee. However nice a day it is, the Weather Gods spot my marquee and decide it must pour! Just as I had opened up the marquee but not got it fully pegged down yet, suddenly a gale started, pulled out half the pegs and flipped the marquee straight over, buckling it in a number of places. With the help of some other traders, I managed to get it upright and standing with a lot of Duck tape and steel poles so it stood for the duration of the show (as you can see from the image), but i'm not sure it will live to trade another day!
I've had cheap pop-up gazebos that have blown to bits within minutes of going up, but this was a heavy duty pop-up marquee... I guess not heavy duty enough! Luckily, the rest of my outdoor shows this year are within other organisers' marquees, so I don't have to do anything about it until next year. A note to anyone out there that is considering their own marquee for events like this, the good ones aren't good enough. You really do need to go for the full commercial grade marquees.
3 comments:
sorry to hear about the demise of your marquee nolon,working on trade stands over the years ive witnessed many a wind related disaster!At least with the comraderie of the other traders and a spot of enginuity you managed to keep up and running and youve got plenty of time to save up for a stronger one! best of luck with the rest of the season
OH NO, I am glad you managed to recover it for the weekend. So lucky that there were some people there willing to help.
Clive, I too have seen many wind related disasters and always stood there saying 'you get what you pay for with marquees. Why do people buy those cheap £80 marquees?'. This was a £400 heavy duty marquee! I guess it needs to be more than that!
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