Scottish Fairs—where tents go to die

[MNlad]

In a replay of the Wisconsin Highland Games in Waukesha two years ago, the Minnesota Scottish Fair and Highland Games were hit by high winds just before the event this weekend. Vendors and Clan members who set up the day before were greeted Saturday morning with a jumble of bent shelters, collapsed tents (big and small), and soggy or destroyed merchandise that looked like the aftermath from Hurricane Andrew. Very few escaped the furry of 65-70 mph winds as an early morning thunderstorm ripped through the area. Pictured below is the shelter graveyard quickly created to clear the grounds that morning, as the event went on as scheduled.


Despite a shaky start and sultry weather, most participants made the best of it.

[Profane James]

Wow! Hope insurance was involved...

[KiltedKnome]

I can certainly sympathize. Years ago at the Victoria Highland Games, high winds moved in at the end of the first day. Usually vendors just close up their tents and depart for the evening, since security is on the grounds. That year, though, everyone decided to lower their tents and "batten down the hatches", so to speak. While we were staking down our partially-lowered tent, the woman in the tent next to us unhooked a plywood sign she had..... The wind grabbed the sign and using it as a sail, lifted her (still holding on) and the sign (and her tent) up in the air and dumped them onto our tent - snapping metal trusses and legs, ripping our tent, scattering merchandise, etc. Our tent neighbour survived, thank goodness, but she was taken away in an ambulance for treatment of some fairly severe facial and dental injuries. She was lucky that she was not impaled! Aluminium tent legs snap easily, and can easily penetrate a body.

[Profane James]

Terrifying...

[MNlad]

We got by lucky. We lowered and staked out our tent well and got by with some ripped grommets and abrasion to the canopy. Those pop-ups that weren't turned into pretzels were the rarity. Even the big vendor canvas and pole tents that usually fare pretty well in a blow were flattened.

[mookien]

While an unfortunate, and even sad turn of events, still I love the title of your thread.

[The Q]

Glad to see you've survived, I've twice been involved with similar problems.
Once was nearly 50 years ago ( now that does make me feel old), we were at a Boys Brigade summer camp down in a valley near Lyme Regis in Dorset, when a storm blew up over night. Our only damage was a few tilting tents and the big marquee.was damaged but didn't fall.
But up above us was a boy scout camp, they lost several tents over the cliff some of which were old bell tents with very heavy centre poles. Luckily there were no injuries.
The boys came down to us for shelter, while once the storm cleared we went up to clear up.
Also couple of years ago at the first ever local boat show they put some of those pop up aluminium gazebos in the sailing club car park. Unfortunately the long fetch of the river blows straight over the carp park at the river bend Even though the gazebos were tied to a substantial fence they were damaged. Since then the show which as become an annual event does not put tents at that position.

[tpa]

Close on 100 pegs for a Scottish summer gale last year.

[Pleater]

I have some long screw in things - I'm not sure of their original intended use but I have used them as additional tent pegs for decades.
People usually laugh when they see me screwing them into the soil and deploying the end to end lines over the tent and the tops of the poles.
Sometimes by morning they wish they'd had something similar.

Not often, but when it is 3 or 4 in the morning and you can snug down in your pit rather than be staggering to the car with what you managed to grab before it all blew away it makes all the times the super pegs weren't needed well worth the effort.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Sir William]

At last year's Virginia Scottish Games a strong gust of wind blew down clan tables and tents, and knocked merchandise off of vendor displays. My clan tent ballooned up but since the ground stakes held it in place the tent literally shook itself apart as the canopy ripped and the frame buckled and broke in several places. Overall the damage wasn't as severe as the photo of the Wisconsin games above, but the tent was still a total loss.

A few years ago, at another games, we had a strong storm blow through and I saw several tents fly into the air, including one that flew up and crashed into several people, including me, though no one was injured. Momentarily exciting to say the least.