Raising a Large Party Tent can be a Pain, but it Doesn’t Have to Be
Here at Party Tents Direct, we’re not big fans of small print. We try to make sure everyone who comes to us to buy a party tent understands the challenges they’ll face when they get it home. So making sure our customers know how to set up a large party tent is definitely important to us.
If you haven’t bought a party tent yet, you should know that party tents are large, heavy pieces of equipment with lots of components. They’re intimidating when you first get them. But thankfully, they’re not as difficult to set up as they look.
Think of your party tent as being like a piece of furniture that requires assembly. Out of the box, some of the assembly will be intuitive, and some of it won’t be. You’ll want to take your time and read the manual thoroughly, and follow the instructions step by step. And once you get into it, you’ll find that assembling your party tent is actually remarkably easy.
Having said that, large party tents are just that. They’re large. Unlike easy up pop up tents, pole tents and frame tents require more than one person to raise safely. And larger party tents naturally need more and more people to get them off the ground.
The good news? There are some tools you can use to make this process a whole lot easier and less grueling. And if you’re trying to set up a large party tent by yourself or with just one or two helpers, using these tools can drastically improve your overall setup experience.
Working Smarter, not Harder
To understand how to set up a large party tent more easily is to understand the concept of working smarter, not harder. We want to reduce the physical, manual labor needed to set up a large party tent. We want to make the more frustrating parts go quicker and easier. And that’s what these tools will help us accomplish.
These tents are bigger and heavier than you might realize. Our consumer grade 20x20 Weekender Pole Tent weighs over 120 pounds. Meanwhile, our commercial grade 20x20 West Coast Frame Tent weighs approximately 370 pounds. That’s over three times the weight for a tent equal in size! After all, it’s made with higher quality vinyl and uses a lot more metal components.
That brings us to our first important piece of equipment: hand trucks and dollies. A good hand truck or dolly will help you move your party tent from one place to another without risking serious back injury in the process. And you’re not exerting loads of physical energy before you even start setting the tent up, either.
The great thing about hand trucks and dollies is that you’ll find tons of uses for them around the house, too. They’re essential when moving your heavy party tent around, but you’ll put your hand truck or dolly to work for you frequently on all sorts of other tasks and chores.
How to Set Up a Large Frame Tent Without Help
Aesthetics aside, most people will agree frame tents are generally “better” than pole tents. They’re more versatile. You can set them up just about anywhere without needing tent stakes. They’re more durable, too. But there’s one area where frame tents don’t keep up with pole tents: setting them up.
To raise a frame tent, you first assemble your tent top frame, and that whole thing needs to be lifted off the ground so legs can be attached. That means you’ll need at least two people helping hold it up while a third person runs around underneath attaching the legs.
A large party tent is going to be too heavy for just two people to lift. So you’re suddenly looking at needing four or more people to hold the tent top up, with one or two people running around trying to attach the legs as quickly as safety will permit.
Now for the surprising part. One piece of equipment can transform your frame tent from the hardest style of party tent to erect into the very easiest.
A tent jack is an important item every frame tent owner definitely needs in their garage. Your tent jack will hoist up your fully assembled tent top and hold it off the ground while you attach the legs. That means you’re reducing the frame tent project from a four, six, or eight person job down to just a one person job.
Driving and Extracting Tent Stakes the Easy Way
Tent jacks are great for frame tent owners, but they aren’t going to do much to help pole tent owners. Then again, pole tents are a lot easier to raise by just a few people. So what can we do to make the process of setting up a large pole tent easier? For this, let’s turn our focus to tent stakes.
Driving tent stakes with a sledgehammer under a blistering sun isn’t anyone’s definition of a good time. And driving tent stakes into cold or hard ground is a lot more miserable. So learning about tent stake drivers and extractors should definitely be a high priority for those of us who own pole tents.
As you probably already guessed, tent stake drivers automate the act of driving tent stakes into the ground. A tent stake driver essentially hammers the tent stake for you, pounding a tent stake into the Earth in no time flat.
Meanwhile, tent stake extractors simplify yanking those stakes back out of the ground. They provide mechanical assistance, greatly multiplying the physical force you’re applying to pull the stake up.
Tent stake drivers and extractors are recommended in all conditions, but they’re mission critical when you’re dealing with hard ground. Driving tent stakes into frozen ground or asphalt manually is an utter nightmare, and these cost effective tools make the process a whole lot easier.
Now You Know How to Set Up a Large Party Tent the Easy Way!
Knowing how to set up a large party tent involves mastering the fine art of minimizing physical and mental stress. And with a handful of budget-friendly tools, that’s definitely something within the realm of possibility.
We want you to enjoy your party tent as much as possible. That means reducing how much time it takes to set up your large time, and increasing your time spent enjoying it with your family and friends. And all of these tools we just talked about will help you accomplish precisely that.
So if you need any help finding tent jacks, tent stake drivers and extractors, hand trucks and dollies, or even pole tents or frame tents themselves, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at 1-716-566-5804. We’d love to walk you through everything you need to set up your large party tent with as little muss and fuss as possible!
