Reducing the Bernoulli Effect on Loose Laid Membrane

Greetings All,

I have been hooked into involvement with the band boosters for a small high school marching band for which my grandson plays tenor sax. They are a small band of 20 members and compete against mega schools whose color guard is bigger than his entire 8th grade class.

To make themselves look bigger against the backdrop of a football field, they (and the band boosters) scurry to spread out a decorated tarp to perform on. This seems to focus the spectators' and judges' attention to their performing area and they do not look so small on the field.

It seems gusts of wind (+25mph) will catch the top surface of the tarp and begin to pillow it up. We have a system for weighting the windward sides, but this does not protect us from what I believe is the Bernoulli effect.

I have proposed cutting holes into the tarp to possibly allow the escape of the air sucked in from the perimeters. I am also thinking we could use the wind passing over the tarp and the holes to create some vacuum to keep the tarp hugging the grassy (sometimes artificial grass) field.

Mechanically attached roof membrane manufacturers seem to have resolved this problem by installing relief vents in their membrane and I am sure there is a calculation involved to determine spacing and area of these holes in the membrane. Their advantage though is the perimeters are fully attached and sealed. Our advantage is we are not dealing with a pressurized building below.

We could choose some arbitrarily contrived pattern of relief holes, but I would like to understand this problem and feel confident of a solution before poking holes in their playing surface.

The tarp measures 30 yards x 18 yards and is centered on the press box side of the field between the 35 yard lines. We have 2 minutes to set up the field and 2 minutes to get completely off the field. Anchors into the field are not an option.

I am looking for methods to calculate the cure for this problem and look forward to reading the thoughts of the collective genius of these forums.