In West Side shopping center (Bern), I noticed this Saturday (April 29th) they had around 10 tents set outside in the grass for display. No idea the brand, but they were tents from 1 or to persons, until probably tents for 6 I would say.
I think the tents were set by the shop SportXX (Migros), which is located in that shopping center.
Tent design has moved on a lot since then with stronger, lighter, more flexible poles allowing much more complex shapes with much more head room over the tent's floor area - and areas under cover for cooking and eating.
This is a Spatz tent today:
This is a modern Vango tent:
Another problem with the Spatz tents is that they are made from cotton canvas. When you come back from a weekend, if it has been at all wet, you'll have to dry the tent out really carefully which will need a lot of space and a lot of time.
We have quite a few tents of different sizes. We got a 6-8 person Vango about fifteen years ago for just over 200 GBP. It's still going strong and we have used it for two week holidays a few times too.
Sure Just thought I'd point them out - personally I own a few tents, and for expected good weather I just love the cotton tents much more so than the sticky plasticky feeling.
The first hi-tech backpacking tent I had was ripstop nylon but the inner tent was lightweight cotton and much nicer than a nylon inner - and quieter - especially when on a Snowdonian hilltop in a gale!
We had to visit quite a few shops last year when we were looking for a family tent, but never got to see the tents on display. So, in the end we had to buy blind! Most shops have the small tents on display, byt not the big family tents. Once we knew the brand we wanted, we viewed quite a few YouTube videos to get an idea of the product.
Bantam have some but not set up last time we went. Camping here seems way behind what's available in the UK. Certainly haven't seen any what I'd call large shops. We bought a Migros Trevolution brand years ago which did a good few summers + is still good (but we went posh & got a caravan instead after being flooded one year).
SportXX in Oftringen have a really big range of tents on display, including many large family size tents. It's a fun place to look around with the kids.
You can view the list on display there (and at other SportXX stores) here:
We were at Bantam in Etagnières a couple of weeks ago and they had about ten tents on display, of varying sizes. They were pitched on a huge balcony that you can only get to from the mezzanine level, so you can't see them when you enter the store.
I know there was a couple of Outwell tents. Don't remember the other brands though. Staff very helpful.
Spatz opened a new shop in Glatt Centrum a couple of years ago but failed. They used to have alot of good tents on display. Now they have nothing much to offer.