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Thursday, March 19, 2026
▶️ Super Bowl LX Halftime Show: In The Shop With All Access
Live Design Online: Joey Brennan, Halftime Staging Supervisor for All Access Staging takes us into the shop for a deep dive into the sets for the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show, with production design spearheaded by Bruce Rogers of Tribe Inc.
6 comments:
Henry Kane
said...
This is a really fascinating look into a production that the vast majority of Americans will watch live. I think the unique challenges involved with putting on the Super Bowl halftime show that were brought up in this article are super interesting. The attention that goes into ensuring the playing surface is not harmed by the show is very interesting, as it’s mentioned as one of the key aspects of the design of the production. The halftime show is like the biggest low impact arena performance of the year, and between specific carts that optimize weight distribution and the fast moving designs of the rest of the set, it’s clear how much of the design process is dedicated to getting the show on and off the field quickly without damaging the turf. I also find it really interesting that the timetable for the halftime show is so short. Multiple times in the article, the quick turnarounds necessary to put on the show are mentioned. This is fascinating as I’d assumed that the biggest performance of the year is planned out years in advance.
Part of what’s really cool about the Super Bowl Halftime show is that so much of the American public sees it. Though for the vast majority of them, it is seen through a screen, for some of them, it is a theatrical production within a massive stadium. The intricacy of the design and the speed of which it is assembled within the stadium are always impressive. If I recall correctly, earlier this year Live Design Online also shared the lighting drawings from the production, and the scale was truly incredible. The halftime show is not only a unique opportunity for artists, but also for designers to showcase their work to the world in an interesting setting. Another interesting element of the halftime show is how much they change the staging from year to year. Each year brings some new trick into play, it is almost never just a stage in the middle of the stadium.
This is dope! I loved this year's Super Bowl halftime show! I am really interested in these “mega” events! The amount of collaboration and communication that it takes to produce events like these just really excite me, and is one of the reasons that I love this industry so much! I would absolutely love to work on something like the Super Bowl or Olympics one day! It was so cool to hear about all the moving parts that had to be nailed to have a successful halftime show! This specific event poses so many unique challenges, due to the football aspect of it all. I would love to hear more about how the collaboration worked between Bad Bunny’s artistic team and the production team. I would love to see some of the math that was required for this. The set pieces were massive, and I am sure it was difficult to find a weight distribution that would not hurt the turf.
I’ve never before really looked into this side of Super Bowl Halftime Shows despite my interest in theater and their design, so it’s really nice to actually do that this year. It is no mystery that I ADORED the Halftime Show this year and watched it too many times to count. I think it was extremely profound and important, especially in current times. I caught many design choices and easter eggs that I don’t think many people did upon my first few watches, and then I kept finding even more as I continued to rewatch the show. While I may not particularly like drafting personally, seeing the drafting for this show is really exciting and fun. The execution of creating, quickly loading, then quickly striking all these set pieces is fascinating to me. The team definitely had their hands full with this show, and I am thoroughly impressed and inspired by the work of all the designers and technicians on this show. Seeing this article also makes me want to go look back at the behind the scenes of Kendrick Lamar’s Halftime Show, as that one I also found extremely important and profound and I analyzed and rewatched for a while (who am I kidding I still rewatch it often).
One thing that I love about the theater/entertainment is that the process is basically the same anywhere you go. You start with the creative team telling you what they want and then you have the “maintenance” team/venue team telling you what your limitations are and you go from there. Something that makes me a little nervous, but I guess works for them, is when Joey Brennan said that sometimes they need to start building pieces before the complete CAD model/tech design is done. I know that there are people who do drafting professionally and are really good at what they do, but I know that when I am drafting something, oftentimes I will not realize that there are things that interact with each other in a way that does not work until I get those parts in the drawing as well. I do appreciate that they bring a smaller fabrication shop on site for any changes that need to happen.
I’m curious about the drafting packet attached here. It has an interesting rectangular border with numbers and letters which also includes a curved edge at the top left, which I’ve never seen before but I do actually quite like. But I do have some questions about the drafting. For instance something about their drawing labels seems kind of wrong to me. Like why would you put “Sheet 5” in the BOTTOM half of the label instead of just “5” in the circle itself? Possibly this is one of those national CAD standard things that people just don’t usually follow but I’m not sure. I also think it’s interesting that the file pathway is noted at the bottom of the page rather than in the title block, which is where I usually see it. I will say that I do like the subtle use of line weight in this drawing; it looks like in many cases heavier line weight is being used for borders , which looks pretty good….but on the other hand it’s being applied kind of haphazardly in a way that makes me think this is a viewport of a 3D model thing where overlapping edges basically get rendered as heavyweight in 2D views.
6 comments:
This is a really fascinating look into a production that the vast majority of Americans will watch live. I think the unique challenges involved with putting on the Super Bowl halftime show that were brought up in this article are super interesting. The attention that goes into ensuring the playing surface is not harmed by the show is very interesting, as it’s mentioned as one of the key aspects of the design of the production. The halftime show is like the biggest low impact arena performance of the year, and between specific carts that optimize weight distribution and the fast moving designs of the rest of the set, it’s clear how much of the design process is dedicated to getting the show on and off the field quickly without damaging the turf. I also find it really interesting that the timetable for the halftime show is so short. Multiple times in the article, the quick turnarounds necessary to put on the show are mentioned. This is fascinating as I’d assumed that the biggest performance of the year is planned out years in advance.
Part of what’s really cool about the Super Bowl Halftime show is that so much of the American public sees it. Though for the vast majority of them, it is seen through a screen, for some of them, it is a theatrical production within a massive stadium. The intricacy of the design and the speed of which it is assembled within the stadium are always impressive. If I recall correctly, earlier this year Live Design Online also shared the lighting drawings from the production, and the scale was truly incredible. The halftime show is not only a unique opportunity for artists, but also for designers to showcase their work to the world in an interesting setting. Another interesting element of the halftime show is how much they change the staging from year to year. Each year brings some new trick into play, it is almost never just a stage in the middle of the stadium.
This is dope! I loved this year's Super Bowl halftime show! I am really interested in these “mega” events! The amount of collaboration and communication that it takes to produce events like these just really excite me, and is one of the reasons that I love this industry so much! I would absolutely love to work on something like the Super Bowl or Olympics one day! It was so cool to hear about all the moving parts that had to be nailed to have a successful halftime show! This specific event poses so many unique challenges, due to the football aspect of it all. I would love to hear more about how the collaboration worked between Bad Bunny’s artistic team and the production team. I would love to see some of the math that was required for this. The set pieces were massive, and I am sure it was difficult to find a weight distribution that would not hurt the turf.
I’ve never before really looked into this side of Super Bowl Halftime Shows despite my interest in theater and their design, so it’s really nice to actually do that this year. It is no mystery that I ADORED the Halftime Show this year and watched it too many times to count. I think it was extremely profound and important, especially in current times. I caught many design choices and easter eggs that I don’t think many people did upon my first few watches, and then I kept finding even more as I continued to rewatch the show. While I may not particularly like drafting personally, seeing the drafting for this show is really exciting and fun. The execution of creating, quickly loading, then quickly striking all these set pieces is fascinating to me. The team definitely had their hands full with this show, and I am thoroughly impressed and inspired by the work of all the designers and technicians on this show. Seeing this article also makes me want to go look back at the behind the scenes of Kendrick Lamar’s Halftime Show, as that one I also found extremely important and profound and I analyzed and rewatched for a while (who am I kidding I still rewatch it often).
One thing that I love about the theater/entertainment is that the process is basically the same anywhere you go. You start with the creative team telling you what they want and then you have the “maintenance” team/venue team telling you what your limitations are and you go from there. Something that makes me a little nervous, but I guess works for them, is when Joey Brennan said that sometimes they need to start building pieces before the complete CAD model/tech design is done. I know that there are people who do drafting professionally and are really good at what they do, but I know that when I am drafting something, oftentimes I will not realize that there are things that interact with each other in a way that does not work until I get those parts in the drawing as well. I do appreciate that they bring a smaller fabrication shop on site for any changes that need to happen.
I’m curious about the drafting packet attached here. It has an interesting rectangular border with numbers and letters which also includes a curved edge at the top left, which I’ve never seen before but I do actually quite like. But I do have some questions about the drafting. For instance something about their drawing labels seems kind of wrong to me. Like why would you put “Sheet 5” in the BOTTOM half of the label instead of just “5” in the circle itself? Possibly this is one of those national CAD standard things that people just don’t usually follow but I’m not sure. I also think it’s interesting that the file pathway is noted at the bottom of the page rather than in the title block, which is where I usually see it. I will say that I do like the subtle use of line weight in this drawing; it looks like in many cases heavier line weight is being used for borders , which looks pretty good….but on the other hand it’s being applied kind of haphazardly in a way that makes me think this is a viewport of a 3D model thing where overlapping edges basically get rendered as heavyweight in 2D views.
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