Concentrated at Persepolis, it consisted of an elaborate set of grand festivities that sought to honour the legacy of the Achaemenid Empire, which was founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC.

[2][3] The event was aimed at highlighting ancient Iranian history and also showcasing the country's contemporary advances under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had been reigning as the Shah of Iran since 1941.

[6] Some historians take the view that this massive display of seemingly unlimited royal wealth contributed to the Iranian populace's growing frustration with the Pahlavi dynasty, while others argue that the extravagance of the proceedings was exaggerated during the Islamic Revolution to discredit the Shah's regime.

[7] Fifty 'tents' (prefabricated luxury apartments with traditional Persian tent-cloth surrounds) were arranged in a star pattern around a central fountain.

Sixty members of royal families and heads of state were assembled at the single large serpentine table in the Banqueting Hall.

The next day saw a huge military parade of armies of different Iranian empires covering two and half millennia by 1,724 men of the Iranian armed forces, all in period costume, followed by representatives of the Imperial Armed Forces, with a large military band, manned by military musicians and providing the music for the parade, split into two—the modern band playing in Western instruments and a traditional band wearing uniforms of the bandsmen from different eras of Iranian history.

[11][12] The cylinder was also the official symbol of the celebrations, and the Shah's first speech at Cyrus' tomb praised the freedom that it had proclaimed, two and a half millennia previously.

Persepolis was a favoured site for the festivities as it was isolated and thus could be tightly guarded, a very important consideration when many of the world's leaders were gathered there.

The New York Times reported several months before the event, "The enormous expense of the celebration is hardly likely to strain the treasury, which is enriched by oil and many other resources.

But there is muted criticism here of such conspicuous expenditure in the face of widespread poverty and back wardness [sic] in this largely rural country of almost 30 million people.

In addition, the documentary claims the approximately 50,000 birds the Shah imported died within a few days due to the desert climate.

Historian Robert Steele has described this claim as infeasible, arguing that the October climate in Persepolis is more mild than reported and so the birds would have been accustomed to the local weather.

[21] Despite a requirement to show the film in 60 cinemas in Tehran, its "overheated rhetoric" and popular resentment at the extravagance of the event meant it did poorly at the domestic box office.

[16] The tent city continued operating for private and government rent until 1979, when it was looted in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution and the departure of the Shah.

The iron rods for the tents and roads built for the festival area still remain and are open to the public, but there are no markers indicating what they were originally for.