The banner is almost never the problem. What fails is the thing holding it to the ground, and it fails in three predictable ways.
It stood up fine while you were setting it up. By eleven it was leaning, and by the time anyone looked again it was face down on the grass with a bent pole. This happens at almost every outdoor event, to somebody, and it is almost never the banner that failed.
The base was chosen for carrying, not for standing. This is the big one. A cross base weighs almost nothing, which is exactly why it got picked up at the shop and exactly why it does not hold a flag 2 metres tall in a gust. Weight is the feature. If the base is light enough to carry comfortably in one hand, it is light enough to lift in wind.
Nothing went into the ground. On grass or soil a ground spike is dramatically more secure than any base, costs very little, and takes 30 seconds. It gets skipped because the base was already in the bag.
The banner was a flat panel. A flat surface at right angles to the wind takes the full force of it. This is why an indoor roll-up outdoors is not a compromise but a countdown: the design has no way to shed the load. A teardrop rotates to face away and sheds the wind by shape; that is the entire reason the shape exists.
It does not take a storm. On the Beaufort scale used by the Met Office, force 6 is only a "strong breeze": a mean wind of 24 knots, about 12 metres a second or 43 km/h. Force 7 is the first one called a near gale. A flat panel meets a strong breeze head on, every gust of it.
The KSh 400 fix nobody makes: for a large PVC banner fixed to a fence or a frame, cut wind slits. Small horizontal openings across the panel let air through instead of pushing on it, and the banner survives conditions that would otherwise tear it out of its eyelets. It costs almost nothing and it is skipped at nearly every job.
Banner printing, from our own catalogue photographs.
Grass or soil: ground spike, always. Nothing else comes close.
Tarmac or paving: a water base, filled on site. Empty it is light enough to carry; full it is heavy enough to matter. People carry them out full, decide they are too heavy, and use them empty.
Indoors near an open door: treat it as outdoors. A doorway funnels wind.
Fixed to a fence or frame: eyelets every half metre, not just at the corners, cable ties instead of string, and wind slits if the panel is large.
Anywhere exposed, all day: telescopic feather banners (KSh 10,000 at 3.5 m, KSh 14,000 at 4.5 m), which are built for it and adjust to height.
Occasionally it is the product, and there are two fair cases.
The first is a hem that was stitched instead of welded, on a PVC banner (printed at KSh 400 per metre) that lives outside. Stitching perforates the material along a line and the line eventually becomes a tear. A welded hem does not.
The second is eyelets set too close to the edge. Under load the material between the eyelet and the edge is what carries the force, and if there is not enough of it, the eyelet pulls straight through. This is visible before you buy: look at where the eyelets sit relative to the edge, and at whether the corner is reinforced.
Telescopic feather banner, from our own catalogue photographs.
One consequence that surprises people: a banner does not have to fall over to be damaged. A panel that flaps hard for eight hours abrades along its fold lines and at every eyelet, and the damage shows as pale streaks in the print, not as a tear. It looks like the ink has failed. It has not; the surface has been sanded by its own movement.
This is another argument for tension. A banner held taut takes wind as load; a banner held loosely takes it as movement, and movement is what destroys the print. If a fixed banner is visibly flapping, it needs another fixing point, not a better material.
Three habits, none of which cost anything. Set up an hour earlier than you think you need to, because fixing a base at 6am is a job and fixing it at 8am in front of arriving guests is a crisis. Bring more weight than the forecast suggests: wind at an open venue is not the wind in town. And take a photograph of the setup that worked, because next year nobody will remember which way round the base went.
In still air under cover, briefly, and with someone watching it. The base is narrow and the panel is flat, which is the worst possible combination in wind. If the event is outdoors and the banner has to stand unattended, use a teardrop or a feather banner instead. It is not a compromise; it is a different product built for the job.
Are wind slits noticeable in the design?
Less than people expect. They are small horizontal openings placed to avoid text and logos, and at normal viewing distance they read as texture, not holes. Weigh that against the alternative, a banner torn out of its eyelets and unusable, and the slits are the cheaper outcome by a wide margin.
How heavy does a base need to be?
Heavier than the one supplied, in nearly every outdoor case. A filled water base is the practical minimum on hard ground, and on soft ground a spike beats any base at any weight. The simple test is whether you can tip the assembled banner by pushing the top with one finger. If you can, wind can.
Can a torn banner be repaired?
A clean tear away from the print can sometimes be welded and re-eyeletted, which is worth asking about on a large and expensive panel. A tear through the printed area will always show. Where an eyelet has pulled through, the usual repair is to hem in from the edge and re-set the eyelets, which loses a little size but saves the banner.
Filed With: Nairobi
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