Utah Crowd-Funding: A comfy tent | The Salt Lake Tribune

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This week's Utah Crowd-Funding project is for people who want a little comfort on their camping trip.

It was a camping trip that inspired Dan Robertson of Draper to come up with the idea for the Aesent tent.

"My wife and I were struggling to get our standard queen-size inflatable mattress into our small 2-man tent," recalls Robertson on his Kickstarter page. "The mattress was just a little too big for the size of our tent. Once inflated, it caused the bottom of the tent to bow out and gave the illusion that our tent was sitting on top of an inflated base. I remember sitting around the campfire and telling my brother, 'They should just make a tent that has a built-in air mattress.'"

That's essentially what the Aesent tent is: A tent with a durable vinyl inflatable base. Robertson has honed the design, and says he's ready to start manufacturing the tent — which is where the crowd-funding campaign comes in.

Robertson's Kickstarter campaign aims to raise $140,000 for the first production run of tents — which then would be pitched to outdoor retailers. According to Robertson's planned schedule, he hopes to have finished tents off the assembly line by July 3.

So far, the campaign has earned $40,202 of its goal. The deadline is April 18.

Perks for donors range from an Aesent brand T-shirt (for a $20 pledge) to a trip for two to Moab (for a $4,000 pledge).

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