Trevor with some judicious deletions by Gorm wrote:why someone would choose something that is modern, (if medieval-ish), when something dead-on period can be had for the same money and offers the advantages.
IT is one thing for someone to choose a modern tent over a period one because of a lack of funds or crafting ability to come up with something better.
But, for someone who is a dedicated player (which everyone who has spoken up here is), I personally don't see the reasoning. Seems like a waste of money to me when something better can be had at or below that price point.
To me, it's the difference between the "Immersive" events and groups and the "Pick and Choose" events and groups.
Some groups, such as the various MTA groups, many Reinactment groups, and the like, strive for Immersive Recreation. They may even have standards that say "Although we appreciate your efforts, you can't play with us unless you have X, Y, and 3 Z's".
There's nothing wrong about that, and in many environments, it is a more complete form of reinactment. However, what I have seen is that for the majority of participants in those forms, once they've assembled "minimum acceptable kit", they're done, they don't need to go any deeper...they're good enough for the club and game over, and there is a limited structure to encourage anything deeper.
(Yes, some do go far beyond that minimum, I'm talking about the unwashed masses here).
Other groups, including the SCA, emphasize the depth of a specific chunk of knowledge. So someone may choose to be studying the processes and techniques of baking, or woodworking, or combat, or, or, or...
Although the group still maintains a minimum "standard", it is set as low as possible (the SCA's is the infamous "attempt at period clothing"), but the rest is up to your individual motivation.
Individuals choose the areas they want to focus their efforts at being "right" at. the guy over there may be a world renowned expert at blacksmithing, and he may be working over a setup that perfectly recreates "state of the art" circa 1145 Brittany, but when he's tired, he goes back to his lawn pimple tent and takes a nap.
The SCA (and other groups) have structure that encourages that sort of thing.
Both approaches are valid and proper and correct. I contend that the "Narrow focus self chosen" results in better knowledge of the *specific areas* chosen for study, with the cost of much less accomplishment in other areas.
For those who want to be that sort of recreationist, they may validly have the thought "Hey...it'd be cool if I had a canvas type of tent, it would fit in a little better when I'm camping next to Joe's perfect single pole regent", and plunk down money on the first thing he sees that meets his minimum standards.
I don't see a problem with that.
Im only talking about using this at weekend events. I don't always want to pull out the regent for an event and use our monster gas guzzling 1986 Suburban for a weekend event when we can get away with bare minimum in the Saab. To each there own.
). I chose my name and my "normal" mode of dress to fit that...although the clothing ain't all that great (despite the best efforts of a lot of folks, I'm just not a clothes horse)