There’s a lot of buzz around the upcoming UFC Freedom 250UFC Freedom 250, the UFC event set to take place at the White House, but right now a huge chunk of the event’s setup is sitting somewhere you probably wouldn’t expect: Pennsylvania Amish country.
Before moving down to the sunny, state-income-tax-free state of Florida, I was born and raised in south central Pennsylvania, a place with rolling hills and horse and buggies, and where people order scrapple because they want to and not because they’re being dared to.
Recently, a giant metal dome popped up in the area near Lititz, PA — just outside of Lancaster and about an hour and a half west of Philadelphia — that left residents pretty confused.
Understandably so. I mean, it’s not like the Amish suddenly revamped their barn designs.
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Local news station WGAL did some digging and found that the structure is being built by Tait Global, a company that builds lighting towers and stages for some of the biggest tours and concerts on the planet. According to their website, they built the stage for the Backstreet Boys’ residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
It turns out that the dome is actually called “The Claw” and will be taken to the White House for UFC Freedom 250.
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But what a lot of people don’t realize is that in Lititz, there is a place called Rock Lititz that is home to a slew of companies like Tait Global that produce sets and provide other support for live performances.
Huge-name artists are in and out of the area all the time.
In fact, years ago, I worked for a radio station, and we were doing an event at the nearby airport. I was standing in the airport fire department building (I kid you not, I was waiting for the Phillie Phanatic to get dressed to do an appearance at our event) and talking to the on-duty firefighter. He told me about seeing huge stars flying into this tiny airport to go to Rock Lititz.
It’s wild to me that this is all happening in what is essentially the middle of Amish country. Now, in just a few weeks, it sounds like “The Claw” will be taken a few hours south to Washington, DC, and will be a part of history.
