Dear Maker of Our Pavilion...

We shipped our (ruined) brand-new pavilion back to the manufacturer a couple of days ago. Today I drafted and sent a letter to them about it basically demanding a replacement. I think that if a tent fails on the first use of it, replacement is not unwarranted. I do not, however, expect that my hopes will be met - in fact, I foresee a lot of hemming and hawing about it. The business has changed their warranty policies since the original owner passed on and they are not as good as they once were ("warranty repairs up to $50 will be made for free" - anything more involved means the tent owner pays for it, and that after shipping & handling in both directions. Which, from our place, was $148US _one way_. Our tent is now more expensive than if we'd ordered one from the Big Box suppliers like Panther.)

I included photos of the damage and the poor quality in my letter. It ended up being more in a 'chatty cathy' sort of tone - I wanted to invoke a desire to 'do right by these poor folks' sort of reaction in the manufacturer but, well - I don't expect I shall succeed. And there may be a lengthy conversation leading me to demand a full refund. We're within our bank's "shopper's support" time limit to have them take action about the charge. That sounds weird. I mean that we may have to contact the bank & Visa about them getting involved in attempting reimbursement. I sure hope not. I sincerely hope that "chatty cathy' will be enough to inspire them to make everything right with us.

In the long run, however, we can no longer recommend the small family business that once was so golden. The original owner has died and his heirs have turned it into something not worth the investment... it saddens me.

So here's what happened about halfway through Pennsic, thanks to a defective central grommet in the roof:

And here's the type of quality that already had me unhappy about the dags - notice the sloppy sewing on the edging? The whole thing was like that.