Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show 2016 content from Live Design: Check out the drawings for Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show, featuring Coldplay, Beyoncé, and Bruno Mars, at Levis Stadium in Santa Clara, California. Production design was by Bruce Rodgers of Tribe, Inc., with drawings by Evan Alexander. Sets and staging were done by All Access Staging & Productions, video supplied by VER, lighting by PRG, pyro by Strictly FX, audio from Audiotek, and rigging by StageRigging.
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What’s interesting about the Super Bowl Half-Time Show to me is how much it changes in scale each year. This year, it seemed rather toned down to years in the past, considering Beyoncé when she entered did not even have a stage or flooring. Whether that was part of the design or not, I do not know but overall this year’s show seemed to be smaller than previous shows. Compare this show to the scale of Katy Perry, Beyoncé, and Madonna. All these shows had huge elements including large sculptures, giant puppets, flying, and more. This show seemed more in the scope of Bruno Mars’ show where the show was extremely well done, however the most exciting visual flourish was an automated drum set. This year featured plenty of pyrotechnics and the now expected projection and media on the floor of the stage, but nothing seemed to completely engross me or draw me in. And to their angle, the show was in daylight, which must have completely limited the amount of elements they were able to execute successfully.
It is pretty cool to see that epic productions like the super bowl halftime show start out just the same as a small theater productions, just on a much bigger scale. I know it is pretty obvious that everything starts with some designer drawings, but looking at these drawings makes me see how tangible a career in this business is and how it is tangible at a large scale. I have no clue what scale I want to work in or what I want to do at all, but being able to look at the ground plan of a immense production and totally understand what is going on is exciting. I would just hate to have to draft that stadium, imagine having to do that, that’s a lot of lines. But back to the point. When I see a concert, or a big scale show, or a crazy themed environment I think to myself “I could do that” knowing that I know the general ideas of how to take something from a design to a product, but I also know I am so far away from actually being able to do that. I still realize that but seeing how simple a drawing can be for such an intense production gives me hope that maybe I am not as far away from that goal as I thought.
I think its great that the company that designed the Super Bowl halftime show decide to make their designs available to the public. Its one thing to see it during the halftime show itself but that’s only one thing and it ends relatively quickly (not to mention its point is the performers, its not like they’re going to spend time showing the audience nice camera shots of the stage they’re standing on). But for me that doesn’t satisfy my curiosity about how their stage and other scenic elements where designed. Ever since I learned how to read drafting I’ve enjoyed getting to see the design drawings of projects. Everything from architectural drawings for houses to the drawings for the sets of a play or musical. I’m not sure what it is about them that I find so enticing but for some reason I can happily spend several hours paging through drawings like this and imagining what they’ll look like when they get built. Events like the Super Bowl aren’t the part of the entertainment industry that I’m the most drawn to, but I still find their designs interesting and will happily spend time looking over drawings like the ones in the article.
I think what always surprise me is the sheer speed at which these people can install these massive rigs in. It seems that every year the stage gets bigger and the time for install gets smaller. This would be prime example of strength in numbers. The space that has to be filled is well a football field and that is no easy task when you add the other components and effects.
My dad was lucky enough to go to the super bowl last year and the first thing I asked him was if he saw the half show design. I can honestly say that I would spend more time looking at the stage and automation than I would the show itself. I look forward to see what the designers come up with in coming years.
On somewhat of a side not, it is interesting to see how low the money factor is on the priority list judging by the Pepsi ad on the 10th yard line. I would be scared to know what they had to do to get that.
It’s so cool to see something as massive as the Super Bowl stadium drafted into a format that we, as freshmen in drafting class, are familiar with. As someone interested in design, I think it would be a lot of fun to be a part of the design team for a production this big, but I think it would be entirely too stressful to be a technical director or production manager for something so huge. Looking at these few draftings alone shows how crazy complex the set up is for something so big that has to go up and be struck so quickly. While I didn’t watch the Super Bowl as it aired, I did watch clips of the halftime show after the fact, and I thought that the technical feats were definitely impressive and visually interesting, especially considering that they weren’t able to do much in the way of lighting and SFX in broad daylight. I think a lot of what made last year’s show so memorable were the glowing scenic elements that made a big impression in the dark stadium, but this year’s rainbow, daytime- festival sort of vibe with Coldplay’s tie-dye made the best out of a not ideal lighting situation.
I’m glad that Live Design is once again releasing all the documentation for the Super Bowl. It’s always nice to watch a show on TV, then look at what’s behind it. I will say, though, that this year’s production was very lackluster. I realize that the show had to be done in the light, but I wasn’t very entertained by it. Part of it might have been the camera shots – being able to see things in the background that aren’t necessarily supposed to be seen was distracting. The lighting didn’t really have too much of an effect. The video-backed platform that the artists performed on was pretty neat and easy to see in the daylight. I’m surprised that they didn’t make it bigger. If the designers weren’t able to do much with lighting, maybe they could have made more significant scenic elements. The stage just looks very plain to me. Still, the team did an okay job with unfavorable show conditions.
The scale of the Superbowl always impresses me. As mentioned before, as a student who takes drafting, it is so cool to see the drawings of such a massive space like a stadium. Being part of the design team for the Superbowl must have so much pressures. From deciding how much of a spectacle they want to create, to how they can design pieces that can be rigged but during a commercial break. As the years go by and the Super Bowl Half-Time show gets bigger and bigger, it kind of worries me for the future performances and how BIG they'll make the next one, and the next one, and so on. Just like Beyonce's previous performance that blew out the power, designers and technicians need to be careful with the size and grandeur of the performance and the design. Overall, I would love to see the design process for the half-Time show and the amount of planning it takes. Hopefully one of us from CMU will actually work on it in the future.
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