So I just turned on one of my favorite TV shows called "Really Big Things" on the Science
Channel. Guess what they were showing... about 20 minutes on how the Cirque tent is assembled. They start out with the four center masts assembled as well as a variety of anchor points already to go scattered around the perimeter They
lay down 35,000 square feet of plastic tarps next to
cover the
ground. There's a truck that holds the tent at the center of the 4 masts. At 8 am 30 guys showed up for work. They began stretching the tent out in all directions from that center
point. It has multiple places where it laces up sort of like a shoe... except it's 3/4" rope. Once it's all laced up they have large rings that go around the masts which are laced and
hand cranked up in the air. 16' polls are attached all the way around the
edge while short ropes are attached to the perimeter. They go around the tent putting up the
edge poles and adjusting the tension so that they stay up. Then a few guys climb up and do some waterproofing around the tops of the masts. That's it 26,000 lb tent up in 6 hours. Very cool.
Oh yeah and it looked exactly the same as the blue and yellow one in the picture above... maybe even the same tent.