Double-decker tents

Regal Tent Productions reaches new heights at Winter Olympics.

Before world-class figure skaters pulled off their triples and quads at the 2010 Winter Olympics, Regal Tent Productions Ltd. completed a couple of doubles.

The Stoney Creek, Ont., Canada-based company erected for the first time two double-decker structures at the Vancouver Games, including the Olympic Rendezvous @ Samsung pavilion for British communications and branding firm Imagination. The 50-by-100-foot structure manufactured by Anchor Industries/Röder Zelt- und Veranstaltungsservice took one week to install, says Michelle McCulloch, Regal senior sales consultant.

“This included the mezzanine level and the frame of the tent,” she says. “Four arches of the tent were on multiple leg heights (one leg on the mezzanine at 3 meters high, and one leg going right to the ground at 7.5 meters high), which forced us to build the arches in the air one at a time and raise them with a crane and two forklifts.”

An additional week was spent installing flooring, staircases, glass and hard walls and a flattop facade, which hid the structure’s A-frame appearance, she says.

“We also used special fabric that was white on the outside and black on the inside,” McColloch says. “This allowed the client to create a blackout effect on the inside of the tent to allow them to control lighting.”

The learning curve of a new tent wasn’t the only challenge. Rain slowed the work slightly, and the pavilion was one of several installations going up simultaneously.

“There were four other pavilions on-site so the site managers had an overall schedule, and each day you had to apply to get your trucks, people and heavy equipment on-site,” McCulloch says.

The experience of installing this tent at an international event was invaluable, McColloch says, and while everything went smoothly, installers gained knowledge about how to improve the process.

“We installed the flattop facade on the tent after it was in the air using man lifts,” she says. “In retrospect, it would have been much easier to install the facade hardware while the arches were on the ground as this was the most time-consuming part of the entire installation.”