Frugal Flagpoles

Recently, I purchased a flagpole holder from Rob Baker (awesome deal, btw), so I’ve been considering flagpole alternatives. Certainly, Pole-Ease is a good maker, but multiple poles get pricey at $35 each–and I really can’t figure out how small they collapse to. I also looked into Rob’s approach of using Home Depot extension poles–but they’ve increased in price to $20 and I didn’t really like that they are yellow.

Looking online, I failed to find any suitable alternatives at flag retailers, who seemed mostly targetted to selling poles people would permanently install outside a home.

Over vacation, I went to Jazzfest and afterwards a light went off in my brain. This event has lots of concerts on many stages. Many groups brought portable flags to identify their group in the crowd. This being an artsy crowd, banners and flags tended towards the creative, many with kite accessories like spinners and drogues.

So, on return, I started researching and found that indeed, kite retailers sell flagpoles–portable flagpoles–at more reasonable costs. Researching, the best option appears to be the PX Heavy Duty Banner/Windsock pole. It extends from 45″ to 13′, has a swivel attachement eye at the end of the stick and banner tie-off clips. At $24.99 it seems like a pretty good deal.

Another option is using a telescoping fishing pole. Now these are dead cheap–$6.79 for a black 13′ pole that collapses to under 40″–and it comes with a line guide. However, I’m pretty sure this doesn’t have a whole lot of rigidity.

I’m going to try a hybrid solution. Since I have a five hole flag holder, I’m thinking I’ll order three of the heavy duty poles and two of the cheap ones. I can use the three for general use, the two inexpensive ones for lighter flags on the side. All totaled with shipping and handling, this puts my total cost for five poles close to $100. Of course, if I went only with the fishing poles, that could be under $50, but I just don’t know if they’d bend too much (then again, a flag is hardly as heavy as a fish).