Coleman Evanston Screened Camping Tent, 6/8 Person Weatherproof Tent with Roomy Interior Includes Rainfly, Carry Bag, Easy Setup and Screened-In Porch

8ight person Coleman Evanston Tent, $109.99).Purchase and Delivery of the tent was October 2022. As I type, I’ve only set up the tent as a test and have not tested overnight. If necessary, I will update this review after my next campout in two weeks. Everything arrived in good shape and setup fine with no visible flaws.I was not certain the dimensions of this 8-person tent based on specifications provided. To clarify: The Main Cabin alone is 12’ wide x 10’ deep with the door into the main cabin along the 12' section. The attached Porch is12’ wide where it meets the main cabin and tapers down to 8’6” wide at front of the porch. The porch is 5’ deep. In total, the tent is 12’ wide (again, it tapers down to 8’6” wide at the front of the porch) and 15’ deep. If you prefer to use a tarp under the tent, a 12’ x 16’ tarp is the common size you’d need.What I Like:-Price. $109.99. You can’t beat this price for an 8ight-person tent from Coleman. Compared to the SIX-person model for $135.99, which I believe was also already a good deal.-Headroom. The specifications indicate 6’ interior height. I’m 6’3 and was able to stand in the center of the cabin area without crouching.-Easy. The instructions are straight forward, and simple to understand. I made a couple of small mistakes during assembly that I should easily avoid the 2nd time around. Otherwise, it was easy enough to assemble alone. Note, I have one remaining question regarding assembly/design, described later.-Cary Bag. I took the time to neatly fold and repack the tent. With that, it was easy to fit everything back into the included carry bag. I also packed an additional rainfly (will use to help cover the porch if rain is expected). I don’t expect this bag will outlive the tent. For now, however, it’s nice to have a bag that even with the extra rainfly and steaks I’ve packed, everything fits relatively easily without having to fight it to close. Note, check the bottom of the bag to release extra space in the bag.-Zippers and Quality. Throughout the tent, the zippers stood out to be a slightly better quality than what I’ve experienced from Coleman in the past. This is specifically true for the three zippers on the front porch where it will receive heavy use. The overall quality appears to be in line with what I've experienced from Coleman in the past.Things I don’t love:(While considering the following, these observations would not deter me from recommending this product or making the same purchase again. However, I wanted to share my observations and hope they help you make a good decision for your next tent.)-Entire Back Wall. It’s difficult to see from the pictures provided online, but from about 2 feet from the ground and up, the entire back wall is all mesh, without a zip-up privacy window. It’s the only section within the main cabin that does not include a zip up privacy window. I’ve included a picture for this. My concerns: 1) If you are not using the rainfly, you will not have privacy from that back end of the tent. Privacy is restored after the rainfly is added. 2) With the rainfly added, at the bottom there is space between the mesh and the rainfly along the back wall. Picture is included with my hand as a guide where the mesh sits v.s the Rainfly. That gap will result in quicker heat loss within the cabin on a colder night/morning. Add to that, while the rainfly naturally ends a few inches below the mesh, if a stronger wind/rain blows directly in toward that back wall, a draft and even some water splatter could blow up and back into the cabin. I don’t suspect the water will be any major issue, but it is something of concern. 3) If any portion of the mesh were to rip there, beyond a repair, there would be no way to prevent bugs from entering the cabin.-Floor Material Stepping into the Cabin. When moving from the porch into the cabin, the flooring (tub) material does not sit flat on the ground. It feels a bit awkward when stepping closer to the door. Picture included. To be fair, it’s likely designed this way to help shed water away from the cabin. Over time, stepping too close to the door could cause excess stretching to those surrounding components. If it’s bothersome or a trip hazard for someone with a shorter stride, when steaking out the tent, consider not pulling the last three steaks as taught at the front of the porch. This should allow the tub to sit a bit flatter in that area by the door.-Door Walking into the Main Cabin. The door from the outside walking into the Porch feels comfortable. It’s large and centered. However, the door walking into the Cabin feels a bit cramped and awkward. It is smaller by comparison to the porch door and then offset to the right. This causes (another) somewhat awkward step moving through the porch and into the cabin.-Water on the Porch. Water will pass through the mesh on the porch. It’s the way this tent is designed. Consider bringing an extra towel to dry the area as necessary. The good news… I was able to cover the porch without too much trouble. Get creative here to find your own solution. I was originally considering a 10’x10’ beach tent. Or steak out a tarp. In the end, and I'm sure I'm not the 1st person to try this, I used the rainfly from my previous 6 person Coleman dome tent (still in good condition). It is blue/white in the pictures. It seems like this will be a good solution without much work, additional cost, or additional items to pack (as mentioned, the rainfly fits easily into the carry bag along with the rest of this tent). I used an adjustable 5’6” pole to hold up the center of that entry area. And I used 2 extra steaks for guy lines on either side. Water could still get in around the edges, but in a light rain with good drainage away from the tent, the area should stay relatively dry. I also expect this solution will be quiet vs. a tarp moving in the breeze. I’ve included a few pictures illustrating how I made this work. COLEMAN should sell an accessory for this.-Assembly Instructions not 100% Clear. As I hinted earlier in "What I Like - Easy...", from the outside, there are two loops halfway down each corner of the front porch. I expect they are intended for additional Guy Lines, but no instructions or additional guy lines are provided to specify the design here. (Note, the loops are near but separate from the Porch-door-loop-and-toggle-hold-back-system). In my initial setup I assumed they were intended to pass the guy lines through into a single point. I’ve included a picture for this, where I am pointing. I think this setup could have worked fine. However, after reviewing online pictures, the guy lines don't pass through those loops. Again, I'd guess they are for two additional guy lines but that also might be excessive. Maybe I'll use them to hang glow sticks to show the way in the dark.- No Extension Cord Port. It’s worth noting before you purchase, if this is important to you: There is not a port for an extension cord. However, I believe you could easily run a line through the bottom/center of the front porch where those three zippers meet. From there run the line into the cabin from the bottom corner of the front door. You’d need to keep the two zippers closed at that bottom corner and it would become a trip hazard, but you could make it work without letting the bugs in.I hope this helps. Best of luck!

All I can say is WOW! I will never doubt Coleman products again.Here's what I thought: I wasn't expecting much from this product. In fact, I have doubted the quality of Coleman products for some time after some bad experiences with other items. However, I purchased the Evanston 6 for my family of 4 plus some gear because of its low cost and the fact that it has a much smaller footprint and would be easier to manage than my 12 person Eureka for a trip that would require setting up (and taking down) multiple times at different campsites. It was also more roomy than my 3 person REI Taj 3 tent that I use for backpacking and I was looking for that. I bought it hoping that it would last through one or two camping trips, and I was hoping that it wouldn't be windy or rain during my trip because I was afraid that the quality of this tent would not be up to the task.Here's what I got: It arrived and I took it outside to set up. There were the notorious wire stakes that Coleman is known for. First order of business, a mental note to replace them with heavy duty ones. I was setting it up to make sure that all of the pieces were there and that I wasn't receiving someone else's return. All was correct. The poles seem very light duty compared to my heavy Eureka, but I proceeded to set them up. It is a basic and straightforward set up with only 3 color-coded poles to worry about. There was a 20mph breeze while setting up the tent and the tiny stakes tried hard to keep it down, but it wasn't happening. In fact, I became discouraged when one of the corners folded over in the wind (I thought the pole broke). But, the tent stood right back up. I examined the inside, the zippers, etc and put the tent away. I DID NOT spray or treat the fabric in any way, and I did not put on the rainfly in the wind during the test run. I did examine the fly to make sure that it wasn't torn and that the seams were sealed. All was correct.Here's how it performed: Took it to AZ during the monsoon season for 4 nights of camping at Grand Canyon and Page. The first night was uneventful, the tent was easy to put up, but I am 6 feet and my head presses into the center of the roof when standing straight up. I didn't mind this because I was not looking for a tent that I could walk around in, but some people might require more headroom. 2nd night light rain while sleeping. No drips from above and no moisture coming in through the walls, made for a pleasant evening. 3rd night brought torrential rain, with thunder and lightning. We evacuated the tent and went to the car due to lightning danger and the water was just dumping down. It was raining so hard, I thought the CAR was going to leak. Rained like that for an hour or so until the storm passed. I got out to go check the tent, expecting to see the air mattresses floating in a couple of inches of water especially since I did not treat the fabric....NOT A DROP INSIDE THE MAIN TENT! (The screened area had puddles, but I expected this since the fly does not cover the screen room and it does not have walls that can be zipped up). Needless to say, I was very impressed. Day 4, we had to set up the tent in 35mph wind gusts. This was made extremely difficult because I had only enough heavy duty stakes for the tent and not the guy lines. I had to use the little wire stakes and they just weren't up to the task, they kept loosening until I placed gear on them to weigh them down. Once staked down, the tent folded over twice during heavy gusts, but popped right back up and there were no further issues. It was actually quite pleasant inside out of the wind. I purchased more heavy duty stakes when I returned home.Overall impression: This is a really good tent for the money and I recommend it highly. The stakes are horrible, but that is easily remedied. It sets up and takes down easily and I am able to get it back into the original carrying bag without issue. I highly recommend using tarps underneath to preserve the floor and we also put moving blankets down on the inside for a little padding for our kids to play and for our feet. This inside portion of this tent easily fit a queen sized air mattress, plus a twin sized air mattress and a therma-rest inflatable sleeping pad. There was about 3 feet of space at the foot of the beds for gear/clothes which is appreciated by my wife and two daughters. We thought of the front room as an enclosed porch and play area for the girls and it works well for that purpose in good weather. I also wouldn't mind sleeping out there if it is a nice evening. The "porch" measures approx 4x10 while the main tent is approx 10x10. The ventilation is good. It has a single door, 2 front windows (one in the door) that can both be zipped closed, and one window on each side that can be zipped closed. The back wall of the tent is mesh starting halfway up. This cannot be zipped closed but is fully covered by the rain fly. A feature that I especially enjoyed was that the design of this tent allowed you to see out of the windows with the rain fly on. A great feature that caused me to choose this over other Coleman dome tents. I wouldn't use this tent for extreme cold temperature camping, but it is excellent for 3 mild seasons. As with all tents, layered clothing and proper sleeping bags can be used to moderate the temps at night. I was happy with the material of the tent and the mesh kept out flies, ants, things with wings, and creepy crawlies. However the mesh is not as fine as my higher quality tents. I did not like the quality or location of some of the zippers. They are plastic and open and close to the floor on the outer porch. It required me to teach, and then remind my young daughters to be gentle when going in and out. I hope they will withstand the use. The screened area has a meshed drainage area in the floor in the front (as it will take on water during rain) and 2 side holes that I assume are there to allow for extension cords to come in. We plugged those up with socks because they would also allow bugs into the screened area and that would have caused a problem with my little girlie girls. One other drawback is that you will not be able to stand up and walk around in this tent unless you are a child or shorter than 5'6" or so (the walls angle to the middle of the tent, but I knew this when I purchased it. One other tip...anyone that purchases this tent should take the time to seal the fabric with water repellant. Not doing so before heading into monsoon weather was a rookie mistake that I luckily got away with. Coleman had my back this time!I am very pleased with this tent and its performance.

definitely a 2 person set up, but you can disassemble yourself. zippers are nice, the patio has 2 doors that zip together at the middle and each door has a zipper at the bottom. the door to the actual tent is a single door with a screened window on the other side.it was a fairly simple set up your typical fiberglass poles, from one corner to the opposite, and the porch has one pole that arches over the door and down to the front two steaks. easy enough to fold as long as you can get it the right size to fit in the bag.it can definitely fit 4 people comfortably, 3 if you prefer more personal space, and the patio was very spacious.I don't know how waterproof it is but it held air in while I was rolling it up and the material seemed pretty sturdy. the rain cover seems to be well engineered over the side windows, you should still be able to get some air through the side windows. I can't say the whole patio space would stay dry in the rain but I think you can assume that just from the photos.overall a pretty simple tent I loved the patio feature and it was a good price for my budget. I was able to take it down by myself and wes really simple. I did need help setting it up tho. (not seasoned so I'm sure someone could do it by themselves if they wanted)GREAT TENT, LOOKING FORWARD TO CAMPING IN IT!