The evolution of light-weight, easily erected, and economical portable shelters, advertising stands and similar structures has led to the increasing commercial and private use of these structures. However, due to the light-weight construction of such structures, the structures must often be anchored or stabilized so as to prevent movement of the structure caused by physical contact in highly congested areas such as convention centers or by environmental elements such as wind.
Various methods and portable devices have thus far been used to stabilize these structures. For example, systems employing guy-lines have been used in which one end of the guy-line is attached to a shelter awning or a leg of the structure and the other end of the guy-line is anchored to the ground or floor. While these guy-line systems may serve to improve stability, they have the disadvantage of effectively increasing the foot-print of the structure due to the guy-lines extending outward away from the perimeter of the structure. Guy-lines also create a hazard for people walking in the area of the shelter.
Other methods and devices for stabilizing the shelters are directed towards adding weight to the legs of the shelter or to the bases of the legs of the shelter. One approach has been to place an object such as a relatively thick piece of metal over the base and around a portion of the leg of the structure. Such weights have the disadvantage of being relatively high-profile, effectively decreasing the available space around the leg of the structures, and being awkward or inconvenient to transport due to their relatively heavy compact form. Another approach has been to employ relatively large, usually plastic containers or vessels that, again, rest on top of the base and around the leg of the shelter. Such plastic containers are intended to be deployed about the leg of the structure and then filled with a substance that can later be removed from the container, such as sand or water. An obvious disadvantage of these systems is that the user must not only transport the plastic containers but must also transport or otherwise locate, and then later dispose of, the sand or water used to fill the container. Like the weight systems described above, these systems also effectively decrease the available space around the legs of the structures.
The fact that the known solutions for stabilizing portable structures effectively decrease the usable area around the legs of the structure is not trivial. For example, creating unusable areas around the leg of a portable shelter used at a trade convention or other venue in which displays and structures must abut one another not only decreases the usable space under the structure but may also prevents structures from being erected immediately next to one another.
What is needed in the art is a low-profile, easily transportable device and method for stabilizing the legs of portable shelters, advertizing stands, and similar structures.