600-Ton UFC 'Claw' Arena Erected on White House South Lawn for June 14 Event

A 600-ton, 154-foot-wide, four-pronged outdoor arena called the claw is under construction on the South Lawn of the White House for UFC Freedom 250 on June 14. The structure stands 92 feet tall and features a steel framework filled with large beam lights, some aluminum components in the lighting grid, and a 100-by-100-foot canopy covering the top.

Built and owned by Stageco, a Belgian event staging company with offices in Colorado and Pennsylvania, the claw is known internally as the beta tent.

Stageco developed the beta tent for the 2017 Lowlands festival in Biddinghuizen, Netherlands, where it served as the smaller version of the alpha tent used at the same event headlined by Mumford & Sons and The xx. The beta tent has been a yearly fixture at Lowlands since 2017.

, told ESPN that Stageco has built several claw structures, which he described as arches or arcs set perpendicular to themselves.

When first contacted by Tait Global, the UFC's third-party planner for the White House event, Rivas estimated a 15 percent chance the event would occur. President Donald Trump announced the June 14 date during a speech at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia. After the announcement, Rivas received messages confirming the plan was moving forward.

UFC CEO Dana White rejected initial renderings because the structure partially blocked views of the White House behind the Octagon. White told his staff he wanted clear sight lines from any angle. In an ESPN interview, White recalled telling UFC chief content officer Craig Borsari: "Oh, hell no, we're not doing this lighting grid.

Borsari said he required a structure high enough not to block the White House in the Camera 1 position, wide enough to keep its legs out of most shots, and strong enough to support the UFC's lighting, public address system and other equipment. Tait Global identified the claw as the only structure that met those specifications.

On May 25, Michael Ward and his family from Ohio observed three large cranes holding a steel structure as tall as the White House while visiting The Ellipse.

Ward told his son the scaffolding was for Dana White and his event with the Octagon. The annual Memorial Day parade moved down Constitution Avenue the same day, and construction of a tall, arched leg marking the start of the claw was visible on the South Lawn. The claw's journey to the White House involved transport across an ocean and multiple forms of transportation over months of planning.