Tent tales (unfolding.)

April 9, Hesperia.

More on the circus tent, or how a giant rises every other day.
It never ceases to amaze me how sheer arm power, or this little group of some 30 Mexican guys, sets up a tent that big and everything in it in such a short time. Everyone knows its role, there is not a second lost, it's like a well-oiled factory in the open, and one minute you're in the middle of a normal parking lot, the next there's a huge tent there, flags flowing in the wind and the 1000-and-some seats inside all neatly lined up. It's done in less than five hours. Martin Romero, of Mexico, is in charge.
It goes something like this. First all the stakes that anchor the tent are driven into the ground, or sometimes asphalt, by a truck. The metallic pounding sound has become familiar; its rythms the mornings in which we set up in a new town. Since it only takes a couple of guys to do that job, most workers take the opportunity to have breakfast during that time. Then the truck with the tent on its bed positions itself in the exact middle of the area where the tent is going to be raised. From the bottom of the bed workers in groups of a dozen take out the four steel beams that will be the structure of the tent, in four pieces they assemble on the ground plus two pieces that go across at the top. Each piece is about 15 meters long. They are then raised with a system of cables and hand pully and good old-fashioned arm strength (see photo.up )
Next the tent is pulled off the bed of the truck and up to the top and from there unfolded in four successive panes, each one being carried off the truck to the anchor stakes by a group of two dozen workers. The panes are tied to each stake around the whole circumference of the tent and tightened, and two workers then tie them together from the ground to the top of the tent. Meanwhile the other workers are setting up the stands, benches, chairs and ring as the electricity crew sets up and wires all the lights and the sound crew the music equipment.
Outside all the while others have been setting up the various rides and attractions that line the entrance to the tent. There is also the pony rides; it's Saul's job to take the ponies out of their trailer, clean and feed them and get them ready for the day (more on Saul on a later posting.) Finally the concession people have also been getting their truck ready for the day's business, shopping for supplies and loading them up.
We on the performers' side, meanwhile, have been happily sleeping the morning away after a late night driving to the lot, and gradually emerge to go about hooking our trailers up, the water will usually come much later, stepping out to find the tent shining in the mid-day, the giant arisen once again. For a couple of days, until the next resurrection.

Photo 1
The beams are raised (April 5.)

Photo 2
Securing the tent to the anchor stakes (March 27.)

Photo 3
Securing the tent panes together (March 8.)