Unlike classic circuses, they offered very simple theater performances without elaborate scenery that were humorous or satirical, often musical, and close to the genre of popular magazines.
The carpa emerged from seasonal theaters of the 1870s that performed Don Juan Tenorio for the Day of the Dead (November 1) and finished with religious plays for Christmas.
The show began with the arrival in a neighborhood or on a street of a truck that unloaded a modest tent with a dirt floor that could accommodate 100 spectators, and with no dressing rooms other than the lower part of a 6 by 8-meter parquet.
There were also larger tents with capacity for 200 people and probably better dressing rooms, and with patched and powdered costumes like that of the medieval bank robbers, or perhaps feathers and sequins in better condition, and always with performers of all qualities: from beginners for the first and second tandas and experienced and talented artists for the third.
Those who attended the performances had the opportunity to meet the artists, singers, and comedians who the public heard on the radio, as well as stars who delighted with their dances and colorful costumes of sequins and feathers.
The public, mostly workers and employees, but also journalists and art critics, arrived with the expectation of seeing musical numbers, current themes of political criticism expressed by characters from the neighborhood: Politicians and "catrines" were, mainly, the targets of the jokes and attacks of the neighborhood characters represented in the "little hair", the drunkard, the quarrelsome or the rogue, making them stand above those of the "upper class" by ridiculing them based on high-sounding words or incoherent speeches that left them perplexed and provoked the laughter of the public.
In addition to "carpas" with comic, musical and variety shows, there were some specializing in plays, such as el Tayita by the Padilla Brothers, where the actress Blanquita Morones made her debut, and which toured much of the national territory.