Gosh, this must be some special grass! Whatever you do is going to leave some kind of mark. Anti-gravity moorings cost more than $5....My initial idea was to broaden the base as much as possible to give stability without serious stakes. A wooden or tubular tripod with cross-bracing ought to be cheap enough. If you made it about 1 metre high and spread the ground contact points about two metres apart you ought to be getting near to the kind of stability you need for a lightweight human-sized figure. A decent sized tent peg through each foot of the tripod would do wonders if there was any wind, and would not make a significant hole in the LAWN. I don't know how long the figure would have to remain on site, but a lightweight tripod of this kind could be moved around and re-pegged to prevent yellowing of the grass under the tripod feet. I thought about other ways of spreading the load, car inner-tubes and so on. Everything else I started to come up with began to get complex and expensive. Three tent pegs, each about the diameter of a pencil, and of a good length so the pegs didn't tear out of the grass will give a hell of a good hold if the ground is good, and the angles and leverage of the tripod is right . You could ease the stress on the system still further if you made the stem that carries the scarecrow flexible enough to bend a little in high gusts of wind. Still, I'm not meeting your design brief, but briefs can be altered if people can be persuaded of the difference between a darn great stake and three tent pegs.......... Alternatives...... are there existing supports to use? Lash the scarecrow to the statue of Ned Kelly/Victoria/Gum-tree. Can you run ropes in from surrounding buildings/lamp-posts/statues of et.c? If you could achieve this then you could suspend the scarecrow above the grass. Make the scarecrow really light..balloons? innertubes?inflated plastic bags? and fill its boots with sand. Shop display manequins have nice broad heavy bases, they get chucked out when the body in question goes out of fashion...use the figure or just the base...make sure it gets moved around so the grass does not die. Other bases of this kind spring to mind...portable net-ball posts have some really heavy cast-iron kit at the bottom [well, here in England they do] could you borrow something like that from the local schools? A lorry wheel on its side with a pipe wedged or welded in would make a ripper..cheap enough from the local scrapyard, and a bit of friendly persuasion might get the pipe to support the figure welded in for free.You could leave the tyre on maybe? A car wheel and tyre might be good enough if the figure was light enough, and it would be a sight easier to shift around too. Arr..Heritage... what about a nice authentic cartwheel to make a base? Whack in a really massive stake and tell them it is just right for the 'Maypole Experience'. And lastly... what could you push out onto the lawn that wouldn't look out of place, and would be acceptable? A cart would make a solid platform to erect a figure on...anything with wheels could be used I guess... a plough, a tractor, a very patient horse [spot the wheels]. What about a wicker figure? That would be reaaly light..but would need a deal of skill.... Sorry, I've run on a bit. Come back if you think any of these ideas are worth thinking about; or if you think I need a clearer view of what you are trying to achieve to help me come up with more focussed ideas. Silas.<[log in to unmask]>