The name is literal. A Zeltpalast is a tent — a large one, pitched on the exhibition grounds beside the Hessenhallen and fitted out with a stage and tiered seating for the length of a run. Gießen, a university town on the Lahn with a municipal theatre of its own, receives touring opera and music theatre this way, the whole apparatus arriving by lorry and departing when the season ends. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte has been among the operas played under its canvas.