CIRCUS TIME: An Answer (Sort Of) For Hugh Walter Regarding Circus Tents

Hugh has been a reader of the blog for many a moon and posted this comment on one of the photos of the Carson and Barnes Circus, Nellis AFB set-up:

"Seeing the tentage come out of a not-small lorry inn a huge roll, makes you wonder where and how they make the tentage, somewhere there must be a vast covered-warehouse with a work-table the size of a football pitch (either rules), with people all over it on their knees, working massive sail-cloth needles while button-thread rolls feed down from the ceiling . . . or that how I picture it now!"

Now that there is an interesting question. We get so wrapped up in circus wagons, clowns, parades, menageries, rides, and main performances, that we forget what it takes to actually make a circus! I belong to several facebook circus-related groups and have had the opportunity to see what it takes to restore wagons so that kind of gives me a glimpse into what the old carriage makers went through when building them from scratch, but what about the tents?

I posted Hugh's question to the Circus Historical Society" facebook page and got several insights. Modern tents are vinyl - not canvas - and this was apparently made by Scola Taloni of Italy, and a quick search of the Internet shows that the name may be a place rather than a company name.

As you can see in the photo of the truck above, there are two spools. Each spool of tentage is rolled out, one beside the other, "stitched" together while on the ground, then raised. As it is vinyl, any rips/tears/holes are mended using heat. Being a heavy material would of course require industrial sized sewing machines. My guess is that there are feeder spools of the material which feed out the vinyl, then it gets all sewed up, then immediately fed onto take-up spools, thereby not requiring a huge warehouse sized facility. THAT'S JUST A GUESS, but having worked in factories and steels mills prior to joining the military it's what I can imagine would happen.

One very interesting insight regarding old school tent making came from Pj Holmes, one of the group experts:

"Ed Bettina Berg in the days before vinyl tents, they were made of canvas and the ropes were sewn to the canvas. Here is a photo of the Ringling sail loft in Sarasota in 1942. This photo was taken by Joseph Steinmetz and belongs to the state of Florida. This building was the former grandstand that was turned into the menagerie building on the 1st floor and the canvas loft on the 2nd and 3rd floors. When they moved winter quarters to Venice, the roof trusses from this building were used in the new Venice arena that has been recently torn down..."

(Photo property of the State of Florida library system)