Your new custom pop-up canopy tent is meant to alleviate the most important event branding challenges. You want something durable, reliable, and that stands out. And perhaps most importantly, you want something you don't have to fuss with while you're actually spending time with prospects and customers at an event.
And while pop-up tents are a great solution for shade, protection, and branding at an outdoor event, they do come with their own unique set of pain points. Over the years we've compiled the most common problems and how to best solve them.
Pop-up tents are helpful but come with common challenges. Here’s the Tl;dr:
-
Wind & Stability: use proper anchoring and wind-rated frames
-
Weak Frames: choose anodized aluminum with strong joints and footpads
-
Canopies Cracking and Flaking: choose the best dye-sublimation printing techniques
-
Water Pooling and Sagging: prevent with tight-fitting, well-stitched canopies
-
Storage & Transport: use wheel kits or lighter alternatives
-
Long Lead Times: buy from manufacturers with in-house production
-
Demanding Setups for Small Teams: Look for well-engineer and designed tents to help
-
Branding and Setups That Stand Out: Work with companies that offer true customization options
1) Finding Pop-Up Tents That Can Sustain Heavier Winds
“Is this tent sturdy enough to withstand major wind and rain?”
With the exception of cost, wind and rain is the No. 1 concern people have when purchasing a custom pop-up tent. You never want to be in a situation where your event tent blows away, is destroyed, and potentially injures someone.
The solution boils down to two key factors:
- Buying a pop-up tent with a heavy-duty, durable frame (strong and heavy, but not too heavy to transport conveniently)
- Ballasting or anchoring a canopy tent sufficiently
Better Stronger Frames Help Combat Against Wind
Cheap pop-up tents that you find at big box stores or on Amazon aren’t going to fare as well in high winds as the professional-grade, American-made pop-up canopy tents we manufacture at TentCraft - no matter how well you anchor those tent.
Those cheaper tents:
- Are mass-manufactured overseas and susceptible to quality control issues
- Use frame legs tend to be thinner and made of steel
- Don't come with fire or wind certifications
For example: Check out the reviews on this “10x10 Ez Pop-Up Canopy Tent” to see what we’re talking about.
We factored in our customers' worries about wind and weather when designing the MONARCHTENT, our heavy-duty pop-up tent. It is engineered to sustain 35 mph wind gusts and it is the ONLY pop-up tent with a certified wind rating from an actual engineering firm to prove it.
Settling for a steel frame tent might seem budget-friendly, but having to make multiple purchases or pay for damages with time and money can add up quickly. The reason some pop-up tent manufacturers choose steel is that it costs a third of the price of aluminum, but it also weighs three times as much - making the overall weight unbearable at the same thickness as the most durable, all-aluminum frames.
Related Resource: Steel Pop-Up Tents vs. Aluminum Pop Up Tents: An Honest Comparison
Ballasting your tent properly is vital to stability in higher-wind environments
Still, no matter how well-engineered a pop-up tent is, without proper ballasting, it’s going to blow away in heavy winds.
If you’re wondering how to secure your canopy tent, we have plenty of canopy anchor ideas (read more about how to anchor/how much weight you need here.
- Heavy footplates (our handcrafted footplates weigh 50 lbs. each) are the easiest and best solution for preventing your pop up canopy from blowing away.
- Sandbags. More affordable, but not as heavy as footplates.
- Water barrels. Big and bulky, but potentially WAY more weight than footplates.
- Concrete. Heavier than sandbags, but not always as heavy as footplates. Also difficult to lug around.
- Tent stakes. A great solution if you have 1) have plenty of space at your event, and 2) are set up on grass. A tent stake won’t help you on a concrete parking lot.
2) Cheap Tent Frames That Break or Bend Easily
Here’s a message we recently received from a customer:
“Over the past four years, we have gone through three cheap canopies (from other companies) and I am tired of them folding whenever there is a decent rain or during heavier winds.”
Yes, dealing with a cheap canopy frame is a big problem in this industry.
The cheapness of the frame is typically indicative of a company or manufacturer passing costs off to you by cutting corners such as:
- Using cheaper materials and less material to reinforce important structural parts of frames
- Offshoring the manufacturing process for reasons of costs, jeopardizing quality control
- Simpler designs meant to benefit the seller's bottom line and not serve the customer
- Limited or no customization opportunities
When shopping for your next frame tents, watch for these 6 factors to determine how heavy-duty a pop-up tent actually is:
-
Material: Anodized aluminum has a much better strength-to-weight ratio than steel and is nearly as hard as a diamond. Look for tents that feature more aluminum (including components and connectors when surfacing higher-quality tents).
-
Thickness: Professional pop-up tents use 12-gauge aluminum, which is 2mm thick. Recreational pop-up tents that you find at big box stores use material less than 1mm thick.
-
Leg design: Commercial-grade canopies use hex or octagonal leg designs for better grip and more surface area for greater stability. Cheaper tents tend to use square legs, which isn’t stable.
-
Connecting joints: Cheap tents use all plastic parts for connecting joints. Professional, heavy-duty canopy tents use anodized aluminum for optimal strength.
-
Footpad: Cheap tents typically feature a piece of plastic or thin metal (less than ⅛” thick) that pops into the bottom of each leg. Professional pop-up tents use a more robust footpad that’s at least ¼” inch and made from cast aluminum.
-
Frame weight: A cheaper 10x10 pop-up tent can weigh about 50-60 lbs. and still collapse after a simple rainstorm. Professional 10x10 canopy tents weigh around 75 lbs. Anything lighter, and you can assume it’s not a heavy-duty tent.
How long does a canopy tent last?
A canopy tent lasts as long as you can take care of it. Even our heavy duty MONARCHTENT, which comes with a lifetime frame warranty, has its limits. But if used appropriately, meaning you’re not leaving it out year-round, and you’re taking it down when winds eclipse 35mph, your canopy tent can last for decades.
3) Custom-Printed Canopies Flaking and Cracking
There are several reasons you're experiencing problems with the custom-printed canopy flaking and cracking on your pop-up tents.
Low-Quality Ink or Printing Method
Cheaper tents often use solvent inks or basic screen printing, which sit on top of the fabric instead of bonding into it. Over time, this ink layer becomes brittle and cracks, especially in areas that fold frequently.
Fabric Not Made for Printing
If the canopy fabric isn’t properly coated or engineered for print, ink can fail to adhere correctly. That’s why professional suppliers use fabrics with special coatings designed to lock in sublimated inks.
Folding & Repeated Use
Every time a canopy is set up, taken down, or stored, the fabric is creased. If the print sits on the surface (vs. being embedded in the fibers), those creases cause the ink layer to flake or crack along fold lines.
UV & Weather Exposure
Harsh sun, rain, and temperature swings accelerate fading and cracking of surface-level prints. Sublimated graphics hold up better since they’re embedded, but cheap inks degrade quickly outdoors.
Solution: Professional-grade tents use dye sublimation printing techniques
Dye-sublimation printing is essentially where the ink is heat-set into the polyester fibers, making it far more durable - essentially making the ink a part of the canopy fabric itself.
Because your logos or slogans are now a part of the canopy, you're unlikely to experience cracking, peeling, or flaking.
Note: There is no silver-bullet to make a canopy last forever, Dye-sublimation printing is the best of the best currently. However, after 7+ years in the direct sun, you're likely to still experience a level of fading.
We've found that companies much prefer very slow fading to the alternative which is peeling and cracking.
4) Water Pooling Causes Sagging Canopy and Collapse
One way a tent frame collapses is when water pools on the canopy top and adds more weight than the frame can handle.
If the frame does handle the weight of that water, then there’s a chance you might be dealing with a leaking or sagging canopy that’s getting all of your vendor products wet. Or you’re pushing off that water and getting things (or people) near your tent extra wet.
How do you fix sagging-related canopy problems?
Buy Higher-End Pop-Up Tents
Sometimes the easiest solution is to buy quality. Cheaper tents that use flimsy canopy material and lack sufficient engineering and fabrication often aren’t optimized to feature the tightest fitting canopy.
Aka the canopy isn’t cut to fit tightly on the frame, so when there's heavy rain, it’s easy for puddles of water to form in looser, saggy parts of the roof.
At TentCraft, our mightyTents and MONARCHTENTs, use our high-quality Duranti canopy fabric, a proprietary 600 Denier polyester, that's ultra-water-resistant and greatly reduces pooling.
Since our products are made here in the USA, we have our team of sewing fabricators double-stitch every canopy by hand, with stitches that are ½” inch apart for optimal strength. We also sew in a piece of vinyl where the tent leg comes into contact with the canopy, preventing friction and rubbing, and allowing the material to last significantly longer.
We need to produce such high-quality canopies because when they’re installed on our frames, the finished product fits tight, creating a lot of tension on the seams and material. A tight canopy doesn’t allow for pooling.
Pro Tip: If you’re using multiple tents in your setup, consider purchasing tent gutters to keep water away from your tent.
Buy Tents with Taller Peaks or Steeper Roof Gradients
The MONARCHTENT Standard Peak is as tall as it is for two reasons:
- Helps your tent stand out
- Makes sure that the canopy is tight and the slop for run-off is more than adequate
Be sure to shop for roofs or features such as drains (in the event you need a flat-roof tent) that are designed to handle a certain amount of rain.
Double-Check That the Frame is Fully-Opened
The equivalent of asking "is it plugged in?"
Be sure your frame is fully opened, locked in, and the canopy is installed as tightly as possible. On professional-grade pop-up tents, this typically isn’t a problem.
Tighten the Canopy Straps or Add Spacers Between The Frame and Canopy
If you're able to adjust the straps that tie the canopy to the frame itself, this can help create a more taught surface and remove sagging parts of your canopy.
If you need to get creative, something like a pool noodle can be installed between the canopy and the top of the frame, to increase the tension of the canopy. When done in all four corners, it should create enough tension to prevent water from pooling. Just understand that adding materials between the frame and the canopy can create added friction and wear on the canopy over time.
Replace Old Saggy Canopies
In the event that your canopy has seen better days and can't be tightened effectively to prevent sagging and pooling, some tent companies will let you purchase and replace canopies designed for their tent frames.
With our MONARCHTENT, the idea behind the Lifetime Warranty on the frame and our 7-Year Warranty on the canopy is that:
- The customer understands that we stand by our durability claims
- You'll have your frame forever, and when necessary (age or rebrands) you can simply replace the canopy
Sometimes your canopy might have been too battle-tested to effectively tighten more, opt to replace the soft goods.
5) Too Big and Heavy to Store and Transport
Unfortunately, no one has figured out how to collapse a high-quality, 10x10 pop-up tent into a backpack. We’ll let you know when we figure it out, though!
When you’re shopping for a heavy-duty pop-up tent, assume you’re purchasing a heavy piece of equipment (as much as 170 lbs.) that’s going to require a decent-sized vehicle to transport it. You'll need to double-check dimensions to ensure you have the truck or van to get the job done.
How to easily transport your canopy tent?
While pop-up tents are heavy, the good news is that some products, including MONARCHTENT, include a carry bag and wheel kit, which makes moving 80 lbs. quite easy.
Without a wheel kit, you’ll likely need two people to help carry your tent. And interestingly enough, some tent companies make you pay for the wheel kit separately.
Pro Tip: And if you need something that's super-easy to transport, check out the GYBE Inflatable Tent.
6) Turnaround Time for a Custom Canopy Is Too Long
It can take time to produce a custom canopy pop-up tent, which can be frustrating when your event is right around the corner.
Many sellers of pop-up tents rely on the global supply chain to source their frames and then print the canopies in-house. If they’re light on supply, you might be waiting weeks or months before your frame is available.
Shop American Made, American Manufactured
Because, at TentCraft, we manufacture our frames in-house and use our in-house design team for the canopies, we're able to control the steamline processes to meet quicker turnaround times.
We operate a lean manufacturing method that allows us to build each product fully-custom as orders roll in, and you can typically expect a lead time of 3 to 5 days (typically the time for us is dependent on art approvals from customers and seasonal trends in the event marketing world).
7) Heavy Tents That Require Multiple People for Setup
The larger the footprint and the heavier the frame, the more challenging it can be to assemble a tent setup with just one person.
Especially since cheaper tents tend to focus on simply giving your the tent and materials and letting your figure out to make it less of a pain (or to simply just deal with it).
Solutions:
Better quality tend manufacturers have found ways to help small teams or even individuals have an easier time setting up a pop-up tent by engineering some simple solutions:
-
Center Mast / Hub Systems: Some tents have a center push mechanism that allows one person to lift the roof from the middle, reducing the need for multiple people pulling from different sides.
-
Telescoping Legs with Easy Locks: Quick-release pins and spring-loaded buttons replace old-school friction clamps, making it possible to extend legs without brute force.
-
Lightweight Alloys: High-grade anodized aluminum keeps frames durable but more manageable.
-
Wheel Kits & Carts: Built-in wheel systems or rolling bags make transport easier, so fewer people are needed just to get the tent to the site.
-
Latch Multiple Smaller Tents Together: Sometimes it's easier to create a 10x20 or 10x30 or an L-Shaped tent by using multiple smaller tent frames that can be easily setup with 1-2 people.
-
Opt Fr a Different Type of "Pop-Up" Style: Some small teams choose options such as inflatable dome tents that fit inside a backpack.
8) Branding, Visibility, and Uniqueness Hurdles with a Pop-Up Tent
Sometimes the pop-up tent problem is less about the materials and more about the impact. You want to stand out, but what if everyone has the same pop-up tent as you?
Here's how we see folks differentiating their pop-up tents most often:
- Truly Customized Designs - A lot of tent companies selling as "custom" are nothing more than a place to upload a logo and select from 7 standard colors. Instead, opt for a premium experience that allows you to perfectly match your branding and get crazy with colorful designs, patterns, or artwork. At TentCraft our in-house design team is included with the purchase of your tent!
- Different Roof Types and Taller Peaks - Rather than the industry standard center peak, shop with a tent provider that has multiple roof style options. Our MONARCHTENT actually comes with 6 different roof styles to help you stand out and our standard peak is not only taller than other pop-ups but also come with a double-sided peak flag!
- Accessorize With Custom Signage, Walls, and Counters
- Where some teams will simply bring a tent, you can stand out by having more square footage, custom designed to make your space more inviting and capture more eyes.
Let TentCraft Solve Your Canopy Tent Problems
When you’re the manufacturer of custom canopy pop-up tents, you develop an expertise that other companies simply don’t have. Reach out to us today with your problem and our team of experts can help you come up with the perfect solution.