The steel giant hanging above the world's most famous cage fight is of Belgian manufacture, originally developed for Lowlands in the Netherlands.
On June 14, UFC fighters faced off on the White House 'South Lawn'. The setting for that evening, a gigantic, four-legged steel structure that the Americans have dubbed 'The Claw', comes from stage builder Stageco from Belgium.
At Stageco itself, the behemoth bears a much more down-to-earth name. Internally, it is called the 'beta tent', and it first appeared at Lowlands in 2017. For Washington, it was converted, painted in the American tricolor, and hung with light grids. The structure weighs about 600 tons, is approximately 28 meters high and 47 meters wide, and rests on four legs. At the top lies a canvas of roughly 30 by 30 meters.
Stageco is best known in its home country for the festival grounds in Werchter, but has been building stages all over the world for decades. "We originally started at Werchter," founder Hedwig De Meyer tells VRT NWS. "In the meantime, we have grown into a company with stages all over the world. We build them for The Rolling Stones, U2, and AC/DC, among others. Because we follow them all over the world, we have also had a branch in America for 30 years. Besides performing, they also do a lot of sporting events, which is big business in America."
According to De Meyer, the fact that a European company secured the contract has nothing to do with politics. "We have worked for Obama before, so this is not political at all. We were approached by a company we regularly work with in America." That company is touring specialist TAIT, with whom the UFC set up the entire project.
For those who build events, the real story is not in the show but in the limitations.
The South Lawn must not be touched: there is a strict ban on anchoring or digging anything into the ground. Furthermore, the terrain slopes at a rate of 22 degrees. Stageco solved this with a galvanized steel substructure that levels the entire field, allowing the arena to stand on top of it without driving a single pile into the ground. The entire structure was built in Europe and then transported across the ocean by ship.
Exactly what the whole setup looks like remained largely secret until shortly before the evening. "I'm actually not allowed to say anything about that," De Meyer told VRT NWS during the setup. "You see, we signed a contract in which we guarantee confidentiality." Meanwhile, it is clear how big the operation is: there is room for several thousand spectators around the cage, while up to 100,000 people can watch the fight on big screens at the nearby Ellipse. The entire UFC event reportedly has a budget of around 60 million dollars, and the repair of the lawn afterwards alone is estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Source: Photo: iStockPhoto 2225035952
