To deal with all of the Super Bowl work that it was handing, the New Orleans-based design firm Solomon Group ramped up its workforce from about 30 to 100 workers. “When you look at the master calendar of all the events, it's pretty daunting,” Gary Solomon Jr., Principal of Solomon Group says. “Super Bowl is like having 30 events in the same weekend.” The city played host to a wide range of fans, VIPs, and football players—past and present for a weeklong party. A fair number of the parties and events held around town during the Super Bowl festivities were designed and implemented by the Solomon Group, with lighting design duties shared by Matt Foucheaux and Rob Kodadek.
PRG supplied the lighting package to several of the events and parties that Solomon Group designed. “Our client, Sports Mark, does a lot of hospitality and entertainment suites for NFL, Visa, Adobe, CBS, etc,” says Solomon. “We did a lot of the parties and built out events for them and a lot of PRG’s gear went to those areas.” Kodadek added, “We were spread out all over the city in all different venues from hotels to art centers to outdoor installations. PRG was our primary provider across all of our venues and they were excellent.”
CBS Super Bowl Party at the Contemporary Arts Center Party
Super Bowl XLVII network CBS held their official Super Bowl party at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans. The music featured Garth Brooks and DJ Martial. Lighting equipment used in the design for this party included 16 Martin Professional MAC III Performance, 20 MAC 700 Wash, 12 MAC 700 Profile, 24 MAC Aura, 16 MAC 101, 60 Chroma-Q Color Force 12, and 24 Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlaze 72. Haze was supplied via two Reel EFX DF-50 Hazers and was controlled via two MA Lighting grandMA 2 ultra-light consoles. Jeremy Roth handled the lighting programming and operation; production electrician duties were dealt with by L.B. Connely, Marcus Stanley, Conan Head, and Trice Head.
The video design for the party was handled by Matt Foucheaux who used two 8.2’ x 4.92’ 5mm LED walls using the SG LED S5 product. He used three HD cameras and a Martin Maxedia media server. The video electricians for this event were Scott Beelman and Jason Christiana.
Generations Hall Party featuring The Roots
There was a party held at the venerated Generations Hall that featured the band The Roots, best known as the house band for Jimmy Fallon on Late Night. Again, Solomon Group supplied lighting and video designs and equipment for the party. Lighting gear included two PRG Bad Boy® Spot, six Martin MAC 700 Wash, 16 MAC 350 Entour, 32 MAC Aura, 12 Mac 101, four Clay Paky Sharpy, and eight ETC Source Four LED ellipsoidals. Jeremy Roth handled programming and operation with two grandMA 2 ultra-lights and Trice Head and Conan Head were the production electricians.
Matt Foucheaux again provided the video design with programming by Scott Beelman and Toby Bohl and video electrician was Jason Christina. The video gear consisted of three 10’ x 3.5’ SG LED S5 5mm LED video walls. He used three HD cameras with content fed by a Maxedia media server and four Barco Image Pro II HD units.
NFL House at The Chicory
NFL House is a VIP hospitality offering that offers a relaxed and laid back atmosphere filled with food and beverages, music, and pampering for men and women while mingling with current NFL players as well as NFL legends. NFL House was located in The Chicory, a 9,000 square foot venue in New Orleans’ historic warehouse district originally built as a coffee warehouse. New York City DJs spun a mix of music that kept the party going until closing time for three days.
The lighting design by Foucheaux and Kodadek was programmed by Marcus Stanley and the technical director was Jay Taylor. The gear list included 100 PAR20 dimmable LEDs, 100 Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlast TRX, 12 Chroma-Q Color Force 12, and four Clay Paky Alpha Profile 700 units. Control included Martin M2GO and ETC Ion consoles.