Coleman FastPitch Swagger 3 review: the fastest tent to pitch ever?

Pitching rapidly thanks to its unique hub system of telescopic poles, the FastPitch Swagger 3 from Coleman offers something different to a regular three-person tent. It’s got substance to back up that novelty factor, too, standing its ground in heavy rain and enjoying great ventilation in the sunshine. That’s why it won Best Festival Tent in the Out & About Live Camping Awards 2025!

While new tents are released every year and every brand will claim to have designed something unique, it’s not often that a model will actually follow through on that claim. There are some exceptions, of course, and these are usually the tents that make their way into the Out & About Live Camping Awards – like the Coleman FastPitch Swagger 3.

Released in 2025, this three-person tent fuses a classic style with some truly modern and innovative details, to great effect. Most notably, it has a distinctive system of steel poles that fold in on themselves while still attached to the canvas when packed away, extending telescopically when pitching. It’s dead easy to use and means the Swagger 3 can be pitched in a touch over one minute and 30 seconds (the interior, at least).

Once that main structure is up, you throw over the flysheet and peg it out – though you could go sans exterior if the weather forecast is particularly good.

The result is a cabin-style tent with a large front porch and sweeping entrance into the interior, with large mesh panels to either side and a further airflow panel at the bottom of the rear panel – you’re not struggling for ventilation here. The aesthetic is a step removed from Coleman’s standard range of family tents, allegedly inspired by Australian tents, which would explain that emphasis on airflow.

For a typical British summer, though, you need rain protection. The Swagger 3 has a 3,000mm 150D polyester flysheet, which stretches over the main body of the tent to provide effective cover while maintaining some ventilation between the fabrics. That front porch is fantastic in use, enabling you to sit out and enjoy a morning cuppa. From experience, it does tend to sag in when the door is being opened, running the risk of water getting into the inner tent if it has been raining overnight.

That interior is really spacious for a three-man tent. There’s 130cm of headroom, more than enough to organise your belongings or sit playing cards while the rain drums down outside (again, from experience). We could fit a decent-sized double airbed – the Coleman Supercomfort Self-Inflating Sleeping Mat, no less – with enough space around the sides to fit several bags comfortably. For a three-person tent, that’s pretty impressive.

It's that combination of great space, rapid pitching and ease of use that led the Coleman FastPitch Swagger 3 to win Best Festival Tent in the Out & About Live Camping Awards 2025.

It’s definitely in festivals and social weekends away where the Swagger 3 would thrive, too. If the forecast is good and you’ve got no plans, it’s a great tent to chuck in the car and pitch quickly when you arrive with no fuss, enabling you to focus on what really counts – being in the great outdoors with friends and family.

Car camping will certainly be how this three-person tent will be used, as that palatial interior and innovative steel pole system does come with a drawback, which is the size of the carry bag. The Swagger 3 weighs just over 10kg and the carry bag is several times larger than other three-man tents, though it does have handy shoulder straps to make transporting to and from the car pretty easy. Just be aware that it will eat up space in your car.

This is one of the easiest and fastest tents to pitch that I’ve yet encountered, and it’s far sturdier than a standard pop-up tent – in fact, you wouldn’t even put them in the same category. I’ve enjoyed a couple of great camping trips in this and look forward to many more. That combination of ease of use and great internal space means it should be perfect for camping with kids – I’ll need to report back…