Mini Marquees the LP Tent ZP XP Marquees part 1

As you can probably guess, one of the questions most often asked by our customers is “What makes your mini marquees better than your competitors?”
This question requires an answer which takes some explanation so grab a cup of tea......
Firstly we have to look at the areas on a mini marquee which are under the greatest strain. Most of the stress on a mini marquee is caused by either the wind or rain and act as forces either pushing into, upwards or in the case of rain/snow, weight pressing down on the roof. The wind is as always unpredictable and generally changes direction , even slightly on a very regular basis. This causes the frame of your mini marquee to twist slightly as the wind pushes it about. In order to counteract this stress and twisting we need to make the marquee strong, mostly in the legs. Originally mini marquees featured square legs which whilst fairly strong really needed to be very wide in profile and thick in material to be effective. Unfortunately this made the marquee very heavy and not easy to handle. To keep the marquee light the steel was made – generally around 32mm wide and 1.5mm thick.
This made for a nice manageable marquee but unfortunately not the strongest and most capable that it could be. In answer to this mini marquee designers started to look at aluminium as the best alternative to help with weight saving. To combat the fact that aluminium is softer than steel the thickness was increased to 2mm and the profile changed from square to hexagonal and the profile changed from 32mm to 40-50mm. You can find this type of marquee in our S40 and S50 ranges.
At last the design was becoming much more what the market needed but here at LP Tent our designers knew there was a much more effective solution which would also answer many of the issues customers have had over the years regarding the fitting of sidewalls.
This is where we introduce the LP Tent XP and ZP models. Not satisfied with giving the frame strength through the hexagonal shape LP Tents designers introduced the complex mini marquee frame work that has now become a standard aspired to by all mini marquee designers. The ZP and XP marquees use a highly complex extrusion for the leg sections. From above this looks like a Maltese Cross shape and, with all the internal channels increases the internal strength of the legs by introducing internal angles to original hexagonal shape legs. Result - a much stronger Mini Marquee frame without any real increase in weight.
I think that will do for part 1 – log on soon when we will discuss the extra strengthening features of the XP and ZP Mini Marquees.