X Mid - Dan Durston

[Lamont]

You do know that they are about to drop another 300 don't you? Check the "discussion- latest reply" it was supposed to be a month ago but has not happened yet. They will go quite quick but if you get in early you will have one in May I think.

[Rosscodj]

There's still a few to be sold, according to the Massdrop discussion thread. To quote Dan from there:

They’ve been taking their time opening orders, so they haven’t sold them yet. Latest I’ve heard is sometime this month (March). If you’ve hit request you should get an email. They will sell out pretty fast (1 week?) but no panic. Good of news is that production is ahead of schedule on these last 300 so they’ll have a May delivery instead of June.

So there's still a chance to get your hands on a brand new one if you wanted.

[Ms_Mudd]

You do know that they are about to drop another 300 don't you? Check the "discussion- latest reply" it was supposed to be a month ago but has not happened yet. They will go quite quick but if you get in early you will have one in May I think.

See, lucky I have you Lamont, you are my eyes and ears on Massdrop. I 'requested' it awhile back, hoping to get in on the next drop, but hadn't checked back after then. Shall pop on over there now.

Riosscodj, perhaps from what you say it is worth me putting my email down again. One by May would be great.

[Lamont]

The only reason I am there is to (try and) get progress reports. Of which there have been none.
You may see a question from me there regarding this, Dan gets all the questions but I do think something, anything from MD should have been forthcoming.
Oh well, everyone who gets one later owes me and the others. The later models will roll out quite 'quick' I'll wager.
Oh well the DCF Durstonator is in the prototype phase and I reckon that is not that far off at what at about 390 grams?

[Ms_Mudd]

Nope, still couldn't get in on the action.

I have really to'ed and fro'ed with my shelters over the past two years and am really looking to get sub 900g, but in 'style' though. I sat at 750g with a single wall solo shelter but didn't like being in it, so then have flipped flopped to heavier shelters (1.1-1.4kg) that are much more comfortable, but the weight penalty.....groan.
As much as I keep browsing everything available either mainstream or cottage industry, I keep coming back to the XMid as I don't think I would feel claustrophobic in it, the weight and price point are both reasonable and the set up looks like even I could do it dog-tired after a day of walking.

So still calling dibs (second/third/fourth dibs, wherever I am in the queue ) for lightly used once the drop happens.

[Lamont]

Nope, still couldn't get in on the action

Do you mean you think you missed out on the next 300?
It still hasn't happened yet.
Should be in the next week/s if you are still interested and if you hit 'Request' you should be fine.

[Ms_Mudd]

Oh phew! I thought it had happened/was happening

Great, will be posied by my keyboard, ready to strike!

[Moondog55]

I looked and looked but apart from not needing another tent what I would want is something similar but much taller and I'm over 184tall and I need to be able to stand up to get dressed these days

[dagsands]

Update from Massdrop admin a day ago:

"UPDATE FOR THE JULY 2018 DROP
Hi all!

Wanted to share a quick update on the Massdrop x Dan Durston X-Mid 1P Tent. Production is underway and we’re on track to meet the expected ship date of April 19th. We can’t wait for you to receive and enjoy your tent. Stay tuned for another update soon!"

You can read these updates by scrolling through the endless, endless comments on the discussion tab:
https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x ... rer=9ALZDV

I just can't *&%$#! wait! I'm not good with delayed gratification. It was like when Game of Thrones announced after season 7 there would be almost 2 years before season 8. >< Only worse, of course, much, much worse.

[Lamont]

"As an original purchaser some eight months ago (July the 9th) I would really like an update. I have had no correspondence or update from Massdrop, as the agents for the Xmid at all, and I suppose I would like something to confirm that my shelter is on the way and at least, on time. Can someone there confirm the date will be met? I must be honest, the prospective unmet recent date for buyers that have yet to pay any money, is causing some uncertainty." LamontCranston
Ha ha -me from two weeks ago.
Finally squeezed the response from Massdrop. Bit like getting blood from a stone.
Must say tho', still not very forthcoming.

[dandurston]

Oh phew! I thought it had happened/was happening

Great, will be posied by my keyboard, ready to strike!

You should get an email since you requested it, but if you wonder if you missed the last 300 sale you can look at the total sold. If it jumps from 975 to 1275 then you've missed it.

Last time (December) there were about 100 sold on opening day, then another 50 (150 total) after 3 days and then it rose steadily at 5-10 per day after that. So selling 300 took about 2 weeks last time. But since the orders have been closed for so long now, there are a lot more requests now (1400 instead of 700) so it's possible these 300 will sell out in the opening 72 hours. But more likely we'll sell about 200 then and it'll take a full week or so to sell out. Of course it really depends on how much longer than wait. If they don't sell the lasts 300 until late April then it might still out awfully fast. Either way there's no panic but you'd probably want to take action relatively soon when orders open if you want one.

[dandurston]

"Wanted to share a quick update on the Massdrop x Dan Durston X-Mid 1P Tent. Production is underway and we’re on track to meet the expected ship date of April 19th. We can’t wait for you to receive and enjoy your tent. Stay tuned for another update soon!"

I truthfully don't know where Massdrop is at with production since they have a separate team that handles all of this, but I suspect they've received the production run and done some initial QA checks to make sure it looks good. I can't see them writing this if they hadn't received the product yet. So my guess is that it takes them a couple weeks to complete all the checks and get organized, and then we'll see these shipping around around the end of the month. No promises - just a guess.

[Ms_Mudd]

Either way there's no panic but you'd probably want to take action relatively soon when orders open if you want one.

Thanks for the insight Dan, am hoping my ninja keyboard skills will be sharp enough to nab one in the final 300. I could try and play it cool and pretend that its no big deal to me, but I really am a bit too excited as you can tell

I will make my move the second I see them go up.

[Mountain Rocket]

Happy to have just stumbled across this tent - looks like a very appealing design after scoping out the other lightweight 1P options from other cottage manufacturers! Have requested to be notified on Massdrop but would appreciate a heads up here if they do pop up for sale again. How much were they going for?

[dagsands]

Mountain rocket they are $200 usd plus postage. Hopefully you will get an email from massdrop for the next release.

[Rosscodj]

Dan has posted on the Massdrop discussion, for those of you waiting to grab one:

Finally some news on this: The drop will re-open Friday. I don't know more details than that, but I suspect it will be limited to about 300 tents with a delivery date in late May.

and

The drops normally seem to always open early in the morning. I think it's 8 AM eastern, 6 AM mountain time, 5 AM pacific time. But I wouldn't panic about catching it right at the open. Massdrop did confirm to me that this is for about 300 tents, but I don't think that'll sell out on the first day. In the December drop there were 700 new requests and then 98 sold on the opening day. Now there are 1700 new requests, so I can see the opening day sales being closer to 150-200 but 300 seems like a long shot. After opening day it'll sell 20-30 on day 2 and then trickle steadily upwards at 10-15 per day. So I think there is a chance these sell out in 48 hours, but more likely will sell out in 3-7 days.

[Mountain Rocket]

Awesome thanks for the updates guys!

[dagsands]

The sale is live NOW. Get in quick!
https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x ... rer=9ALZDV

[Lamont]

180 sold in 5 hours. The massdrop site might explode.

[Mountain Rocket]

Thanks for the heads up dagsands, forgot I turned off emails from Massdrop (where I was expecting to get notified from). Only ~70 left in this run so definitely don't snooze...

[dagsands]

Thanks for the heads up dagsands, forgot I turned off emails from Massdrop (where I was expecting to get notified from). Only ~70 left in this run so definitely don't snooze...

No worries. All sold out so drop is ended. That’s got to be some sort of record. They were hot like concert tickets!

[slparker]

That's a huge sale - I wonder how much this Massdrop/Durston collaboration is affecting sales of 'cottage' tent manufacturers in the US?

It must be eating into the silnylon tarp and tent pole erected tent market, I reckon. I for one will be selling a tarp and one, or even two tents, when my x-mid arrives in a month or so; that is, if it proves to be as good in the flesh as the design suggests.

[dandurston]

That was a fast sale - Massdrop ended up making 285 available which sold out in 11 hours. I expected it would take a few days.

That means these tents are basically sold out for 2019. We have one more shipment on order (I think with 500) but it's not expected until early fall (September?). I suppose that's good hiking season in Australia but at the end of it in the Northern hemisphere.

I'm looking forward to people getting these tents starting in a few weeks and reading the review and first impressions. Thanks for the support from everyone on here.

[Ms_Mudd]

I had two forum users let me know they were going live, thank you. I still missed out though.
I checked when I was going to bed after knocking off from work at 2300hrs, still were not live, was back on shift at 0700hrs and didn't have time to check as I was dragging my weary self into my scrubs, checked in my first break of the day and BAM- they were all gone.
Bit bummed, was feeling a bit poor anyway after a great few days away, but had just enough to get in on the drop. Have pulled the trigger on a Lanshan 1 and will give it a run instead.

I shall live vicariously through those of you who get them

[Moondog55]

Can the factory only do runs of 300 or so? Is this because it has to be programmed in between bigger production runs for big brands>??
It seems as if there is the need for a run of 3 or 4 days with the background demand. Note that I am not part of the background demand just a curious onlooker

[dandurston]

Can the factory only do runs of 300 or so? Is this because it has to be programmed in between bigger production runs for big brands?

No. I'm not sure of the exact situation because Massdrop does all the talking with the factory but they can do big runs. They make about 400,000 tents a year, so I'm sure if we wanted 10,000 they could do it.

The original run was 1000 tents but then I wanted to make a few last minute improvements after we had agreed on a final design. Mostly I realized that these short seams near the corners of the fly weren't necessary because they could be avoiding by changing how the panels are laid out on the roll of fabric. I wanted to avoid that partly because am OCD about imperfections, but it also adds a tiny bit of weight and the aesthetics are better without these seams:

So the production tents don't have those seams (and a few other tweaks, like a slightly taller zipper):

It's just simple changes but nothing is simple with factories because they want to do another prototype and get it approved to ensure they've understood the changes correctly before starting production. Thus it adds delay and cost. The factory wanted to increase the price but said they would waive that if we ordered another 300. I wanted to make the changes and Massdrop didn't want to increase the cost since margins are slim, so they wavered over it but eventually agreed to increase the order by 300. Those extra 300 tents are supposedly in a separate shipment a few weeks behind the first. Since Massdrop wasn't clear on when those were arriving until recently, they didn't sell them sooner (they cut off orders at 975 back in the December drop but would have got to close to 1250 sold then).

So Massdrop totally could have ordered more but they were being conservative. And I get that. I've been telling them forever that it's obvious these won't be hard to sell but they're hesitant. For one, they've really trusted me with this design so if I missed some major flaw and they all come back under warranty then obviously it's better if that's 1000 tents and not 3000. And realistically no tent is going to be perfect right from the outset. I think it's great and I'm enamoured with it, but I'm sure that I and others will think of small tweaks and improvements for years to come. So by having a moderate production run this year, we can consider all the feedback and hopefully make it even better for a 2020 run.

[dagsands]

Dan - Being OCD about tent design is an excellent trait in a human being.

[Rosscodj]

Just got an email that says they hope to begin shipping by the end of next week. Slightly ahead of schedule, which is always nice!

Also, I prefer to call it CDO... that way the letters are in the right order.

[Rosscodj]

checked in my first break of the day and BAM- they were all gone.

Ahhh, that's a bummer, I was wondering whether you'd managed to grab one.

[dagsands]

Just got an email that says they hope to begin shipping by the end of next week. Slightly ahead of schedule, which is always nice!

Also, I prefer to call it CDO... that way the letters are in the right order.

hehe OK Rossco CDO it is.
I was also excited to get that email. I don't know why I am fretting, seems ridiculous, but they better be sending it airmail ! Surely they would, wouldn't they?