The first weekend, Ravenwood ended with strong, damaging, winds.  I was there as a guest and saw the destruction caused to many of the tents. For the second weekend, I wanted to come prepared.

In addition to the normal 40lb concrete tube weights, I brought multiple sets of screw in ground anchors. Screw in anchors are an excellent alternative to tent stakes. They are easy to set and remove using a power drill or impact driver, and include driver bits.

I used:

Steel ground anchors: Adventure Seeka Ground Anchors Pro

Aluminum screw-style ground anchors: GarfatolRv Aluminum Ground Anchors 16 pack

The steel ground anchors held up really well. I did have an issue with them tending to drill a hole and remove soil instead of anchoring into it. From a safety perspective, it is clear when this is happening so it shouldn’t catch anyone off guard. Provided you can screw them into the soil without pulling too much up, they are an extremely good anchor point.

The aluminum anchors were excellent at anchoring into the soil at the fairground. When packing out I realized one or two had bent slightly, so the they may be good for limited uses. I suspect it happened when driving them in, since they screwed in so tightly.

I recommend bringing multiple styles of anchors since the soil type will affect what works best.

For tying everything down, I normally use 550lb test paracord since it strong but unobtrusive. The lines are run up to the canopy, down to an end loop that goes through the anchor point, and back up where they are tied to the themselves with a friction hitch. This more than triples the holding power of the friction hitch. It also increases the theoretical breaking strength of each line to 1100lbs.

With the potential for significant wind, I went with ratchet straps as well. Ratchet straps are an excellent choice because they can be easily tightened with the ratchet mechanism and have high load ratings. They do stand out, which could be a pro or con, depending on the show. I covered my visible tie downs with curtains for Ravenwood.