It was an ordinary day. Sort of ordinary! I say that since it was Super Bowl Sunday and the big game was almost half over. As soon as time ran out in the first half, the work crew began to assemble the stage on the football field. The multipiece stage was very large and you could tell that the crew must have practiced many times in order to get it assembled as fast as they did. By the time the first group of commercials were over, the small illuminated city grid was in place. Looked like a "miniature street" that was illuminated in LED lights. The illuminated city was made in Lititz, Pennsylvania which is about a mile or so from my home in Manheim Township, Lancaster County. The company that built the set in Lititz, totally disassembled it, transported it to Los Angeles Stadium for the half-time show and reassembled it at the start of halftime show and finally disassembled it after the halftime show was over. The entire "miniature street" was built by Lititz-based "Atomic" which is an entertainment company whose work includes set construction and project planning. They were responsible for the set construction and project planning, getting the set to the football field, setting it up at the beginning of halftime and taking it down when halftime was over.
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| The set from Lancaster County at the Super Bowl |
Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, 0 Cent, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar and Eminem all performed on the large, white multi piece stage. When the camera panned up to an aerial view, those watching the half-time on TV saw a shining city grid illuminated in LED lights. The city was supposed to be Compton in southern Los Angeles County, California, since many of the rappers come from Compton including Dr. Dre and Lamar. The city was the inspiration for the set as well as for many of the artist's songs. Alix Reynolds, account manager for Atomic, said it was incredibly rewarding to see all the elements come together for the show. Mr. Reynolds said that the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show design team contacted Atomic and the company was "excited by the challenge." Atomic's program manager, James Rogers explained how everything came together on game day. They used over 31,000 square feet of printed fabric to create the field cover that set the stage for the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show. The entire piece was created by digitally stitching together 1,200 photos of an aerial map of Compton, California. Then, they sewed 16,000 individually controlled LED lights into the fabric. The crew only had eight minutes to set up the display and six minutes to take down the display. They separated the overall piece into about 20 sections with 12 to 15 people assigned to each section and on cue, they were strategically placed on the field to appear as one giant map of Compton. I should also tell you that Atomic's LED lights display wasn't the only piece of Lancaster County in this year's Super Bowl. A director from central Pennsylvania who lived much of his life in Lancaster directed The Botanist gin's first television commercial that debuted during Super Bowl LVI. Mercedes-EQ also used a piece of Lancaster County in one of it commercials. The carmaker used drone footage from a nearby Lititz father and son duo who work under the name "717 Drone Guys." So, if you watched the game in it's entirety, you got a chance to see quite a bit of Lancaster County and its landscape as well as its technology. Bet you weren't ready for that...were you? It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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