Article by Zena Gardner (20th June 2010)
In the interest of Better Festivalling and working for the fans of festivals, its sometimes inevitable to have to write up about the failings of others, and whilst not enjoyable to highlight the pitfalls of someone else, it is important to ensure that festival attendees get the most up to date news, be that good or bad! Unfortunately this time it’s bad.
The Green Tent Company had the right idea; focusing on an environmentally friendly solution to standard tents that take up to 40 years to bio-degrade, whilst not compromising on quality, standard or cost, but after their appearance at Download Festival 2010 it seems that their idea has not completely come to fruition despite selling their tents to a huge number of Download attendees and claiming “they could be used SEVERAL times BEFORE being sent for recycling” and that the whole range is waterproof.
Among the issues reported on the Download Forums (http://forums.downloadfestival.co.uk/m4662615.aspx) are poor customer service, a lack of durability and products being far from waterproof. Unfortunately all these issues were experienced by attendees of Download Festival at the festival but should have been highlighted before these products were sold to festival goers.
And it wasn’t just the tents that appeared to fall short on customer satisfaction, among the other items with issues were wind up torches, lights, standard torches, alleged poor quality camping chairs and sub standard on-site customer services.
Some comments from Download Festival Forum;
“Mine collapsed after twenty minutes and got utterly destroyed by the rain. ”
“I had 2 mini torches, one wind up torch and a light…. none of them worked.”
“By Saturday morning the poles had snapped and was lopsided. Then on Sunday night, well I don’t want to talk about it (but I will) the place was flooded, collapsed tent and soaking belongings.”
“my brother and his girlfriend bought a 3 man tent from the Green Tent Company, the cross section at the top that the poles go into snapped as soon at it was put together”
“didn’t buy a tent off these but did order a chair and after a day one of the arms had ripped off and the rivets bent… just about held together for the weekend”
“The middle joining piece snapped within minutes, and as we took it back there was someone else there with exactly the same problem. The man that gave us a replacement part was very rude and short with us. Even after this the poles bent the wrong way making the tent very unstable, and the pole for the canopy had nearly snapped after a couple of hours. We also bought a cheap tent light which only worked if you held it facing up, and our friend bought a chair that broke because a piece of metal sheered off after a couple of days.”
“The tent kept falling down a few hours after fixing it and to top it all off it blew down and completely flooded on the sunday (meaning we had to go home early because we had nowhere to sleep) – my friend’s did exactly the same and all around us the green tent company tents were collapsed or struggling to stay up”
The ethos behind this company is one very close to the heart of The Better Festival Group, and the occurences experienced at Download by customers of The Green Tent Company have been very disappointing to hear. We hope that this company continues with its environmental mission but implements some seriously needed product testing in the future before potentially ruining peoples’ festival experience and delivers a future product that lives up to its claims, of durability and water resistance.
Unfortunately it may be that tents are made with certain fabric (and a number of different fabrics) because that is what’s needed for a suitable and comfortable camping experience, and that one fabric tents just can’t withstand the elements or the festival environment, but suitable testing should be able to prove or disprove this notion.
Maybe the best way to push for a more environmental outlook at festivals is to encourage people to invest in a quality brand tent and then take some pride and care in it to enable it to be re-used many times and in the case of people not wanting to reuse their tent, to have suitable provisions in place to get reusable tents reused by organisations local to each event. The BIG Tent Recycle is doing exactly this at Sonisphere and Wakestock this year, and is asking people to take their unwanted equipment to designated drop off points at both sites for sorting and then re-distribution to Scouts, homless shelters and organisations such as Goodone who will use tent fabric in fashion design.
#1 by chloe on July 11, 2010 - 21:08
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Does anyone know how we can get a refund from this company? We have bought the 6 man tent,at a cost of £175, and are due to pick it up from Latitude next weekend. We are very concerned after reading reports such as this and all the accounts written on the Download forum. We are taking two small children and cannot risk an unstable, unwaterproof tent. Have emailed the company twice over a week ago, and left them an answering machine message. Really want to get our money back before the festival. Any advice? Thanks.
#2 by zee on July 11, 2010 - 21:30
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Unfortunately I am unsure how you would go about getting a refund if the company itself wont answer your calls, maybe try making contact with http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/ as they may be able to point you in a better direction than myself. I will say however that The GTC have assured people that that they are working on the issues faced at Download to avoid a repeat performance, and that some of the issues were down to a manufacturing fault, so it may be that things will be sorted by Latitude.
#3 by chloe on July 12, 2010 - 09:08
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Thank you for the advice. I realise they are replacing one faulty part of the tent, but after seeing pictures and reading about people having to go home early I would much rather get money back beforehand, rather than experience that and then have to try and get a refund after using the tent!
Thanks for the link to consumer direct. We are going to give them a call today to see where we stand.
#4 by Adam Boswell on July 21, 2010 - 15:44
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I have just used a 6 man tent festival kit from these guys that was purchased online then collected and then erected (in the ridiculous wind) at Latitude 2010. And I have some comments regards your article.
Some of your comments are correct, of the 6 lanyard torches we got with our early bird purchase 1 didn’t work, and I had to dismantle one of the wind up lanterns to fix it and make it work, also the trolley that was supplied to cart all the kit back to the pitch lasted about 25 feet before it fell apart.
The Tent itself was just as waterproof as any tent that I have used at a festival before, however we did only get at most 1 hour of rain over the 4 nights of use, so possibly it might have leaked had it been subjected to more rain. The main complaint about the tent were the woefully inadequate poles, which are far too bendy and do not have enough rigidity to support the big 6 man tent, and the plastic pegs are utterly useless, and snap as soon as you hit them with the supplied rubber mallet, luckily we had the foresight to bring our own pegs.
We did see plenty of the smaller tents that looked pretty stable, but there were a number of 6 man tents that looked terrible, employing tarp and parts of dead gazebo to make them secure. Overall I would say that if you have not pitched a tent before you will be in trouble if you have purchased a 6 man tent from these guys, but if you are reasonable competent at erecting a tent, it is possible to make a pretty good job of it.
In summary however I would absolutely not use these guys in future unless there was no option of getting a tent in advance. There is a reason why all other tents are made of multiple different materials!
I have written to them asking for a full refund, and am quite happy to go down the small claims route via money claim online if they choose to ignore me, as under the sale of goods act as arguably, none of the items sold to us were fit for purpose.