Review on 🏖️ Ultimate Sun Shelter: Introducing the Kelty Shade Maker by Stephen Burgstaller

I bought this canopy for beach use to replace one of those heavy, light weight canopies. I've used one of these a couple of times and haven't had any issues except that they're heavy when you have to lug them to the beach. I researched these lighter models for a while and settled on the Kelty Shade Maker because of their reputation and lighter weight. I was excited to bring this thing to the beach. It was much easier to get it to the beach, but it takes two people to install it when it's windy (one person can install it when it's not windy). Man, if you're strong enough to bend the rod yourself to hook it onto the pins - not easy). I bought some sand stakes and installed them with the help of a friend of mine. It was not an easy install in light winds. If you don't use guy lines, it's almost impossible to set up in light winds. That was just the beginning of the problems. Its design consists of two staffs that bring it to a standstill and two staffs that run from above. With a light wind, one of the pillars it stands on flipped over a little, and half the shelter mostly flipped over so that it almost touched the ground. The next day the wind was a bit stronger (not much at all). The umbrellas were ok, a lot of the basic shelters were ok - even the small half domed beach curtains were ok but we really struggled to set up this shelter. It's like a big parachute. We were assembling it and working to fix it and one of the rods broke. I couldn't believe it. The second time we tried to use the hideout, it collapsed and became unusable. I spent $250 on a shelter that I got to use once (and not very well because it kept tipping over). The lightweight $100 awnings and $15 umbrellas felt good around me and I was stuck without protection. Even if you don't have any wind at all, I wouldn't buy this shelter. After the first use, the material started to tear in some places and water gets on it when it rains. Very very disappointed. I would not recommend this product.