Once again Bruce Rodgers of Tribe Inc led the charge for the production design for the Apple Music Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show starring Usher in a dynamic musical performance on the field at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on February 11, 2024. Live Design chats with Rodgers on his role and collaboration with the artist's team.
Read all of Live Design's exclusive Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show coverage here.
Live Design: When did you start working on the 2024 Halftime Show? Any specific challenges this year?
Bruce Rodgers: The Halftime team typically starts a few months before the artist is announced. This year we were three stadium surveys in before we knew the great Usher was the Super Bowl LVIII Halftime artist.
In these early surveys, we assessed the stadium site plan and access tunnels and quickly found that this was the smallest stadium site with the smallest tunnels in recent memory. These limitations caused concern and pointed us to imagine a sideline-located stage akin to Bruno Mars at MetLife SBXLVIII which included crossing over the east side team bench — both unpopular design features as far as everyone the NFL, and our producers were concerned. I asked the NFL's Populous Architects if it was possible to increase the south east tunnel width by modifying the bleacher structure and it was deemed doable at a hefty fee. Thankful the cost was approved and we were provided with a 12'-0" tunnel width similar to years past.
Another challenging factor was the field turf. Similar to Glendale, AZ SBLVII, where an actual grass field is planted onto a massive mechanical tray that shifts it outdoors for sun and watering, Las Vegas' $2B Allegiant Stadium, located in the desert of Southern Nevada, was also real grass turf. And similar to State Farm Stadium in Glendale, the grass was extremely sensitive and therefore we were given limits by the NFL and Team Association to be on the Allegiant field fewer times than even Glendale. These challenges required us to design to half as many carts as previous years and half the amount of time the carts and field cast were allowed on the actual field.
We were granted three rehearsals on the actual field but only with the vinyl field cover protection in place. This would mean we would not ever practice on the actual grass surface until game day.
Understanding the need for a safe playing surface, all these limitations combined were worrisome with our infamous eight-minute install and six-minute strike. And the cart count limitations meant we needed to find a spectacular show with less staging.
Another challenge was the time of the game starting in the afternoon. With a fast paced 1st and 2nd Quarter in the game, the Halftime show would air in a daylight setting before the sun settled in the west. We were hoping for a long 2nd quarter.
Thankfully we had the support of our execs at Roc Nation, Dave Meyers and Jesse Collins and Dionne Harmon, and everyone at DPS and JCE as well as key NFL partners and the USHER camp to help us find creative solutions for a great show!
LD: What was the interaction / direction with the Usher team? What vibe did they want? What inspired the design of the stage?
BR: In early August we learned that Usher would be the Halftime artist! He was just wrapping his critically acclaimed residency at Park MGM in Las Vegas and we would quickly learn that his entire team was a well-oiled machine with some familiar names leading the production like creative director Aakomon Jones, production manager Hydro Mullin, and tour manager Huggy Carter. We were pleased to hear that acclaimed designer and producer Baz Halpin (who was also part of the Katy Perry Halftime show SBLVII creative team) was joining Usher's team too!
Sometime in mid-August I started zoom meetings with Aakomon and Baz where we brainstormed various stage locations and shapes and ways to make a 12-minute show work. A week later the entire Halftime and Usher team met in person at the stadium, including Usher himself to survey the stadium to have our initial creative session in the coaches conference room underneath the stadium.
This meeting launched us forward to what we saw on Super Bowl Sunday where Usher brought his unique showmanship to the Super Bowl. Baz and Aakomon describe this better than me but I was impressed with the artistry all across the entire production starting with Usher and his stellar team, our amazing producers, directors Hamish and Shawn, and our whole incredible team. And the NFL support team led by Seth Dudowsky and others was instrumental in helping us create this spectacle! It was definitely a successful team effort!
LD: Other than All Access, who built some of the set pieces — which and what?
BR: Veteran stage builders All Access and our FUSE video team worked together to make the "video floor" stage into a deployable 20-cart solution.
Baz and the Blink video content design team developed the stunning video content and worked with Hamish to perfectly line up "perspective" imagery and other key shots.
PixMob wristbands and laminates added a 360 audience background adding to the energy of the beautiful show lighting by Al Gurdon and team.
Pyrotechnico and C2W Rigging as well as ATK and PRG lighting were back again and did a great job.
The opening scene featured a dazzling Mirror & LED Throne built by David Mendoza and his team at ShowFX, which also built the Alicia Keys Red piano!
The great Michael Curry and his team at Michael Curry Design orchestrated Alicia's Red Silk Cape.
It took an excellent and graceful team of puppeteers to move the silk and special thanks goes to Michael and Silent House's Vincent Richards, KP Terry, Baz and Usher and Alicia and team for making these scenes look amazing.
Ultimately Usher's team brought an incredible performance and the Halftime team executed another exciting 13-minute show where we were on the field in 07:14.86 and off in 06:15.68 on my clock...and the unharmed grass survived the second half of the big game which made the NFL happy. This Halftime show played to an audience of over 200 million world wide- a record for all the Super Bowl games!
CREDITS:
ROC NATION CAMP:
CREATIVE DIRECTOR/ PRODUCTION DESIGNER - BRUCE RODGERS
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS - JESSE COLLINS, ROGER GOODELL, DESIREE PEREZ
CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS - DIONNE HARMON, DAVE MEYERS
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER/DIRECTOR - SHAWN CARTER
PRODUCER / DIRECTOR - HAMISH HAMILTON
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR - HAYLEY COLLETT
LEAD STAGE MANAGER - GARY NATOLI
SUPERVISING PRODUCER - AARON COOKE
FIELD CREATIVE PRODUCER - KRISTEN PATTERSON "KP" TERRY
NFL HEAD OF MUSIC - SETH DUDOWSKY
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY - DYLAN SANFORD
ART DIRECTOR - SHELLEY RODGERS
ASSISTANT ART DIRECTORS - LINDSEY BRESLAUER, MARIA GARCIA, LILY RODGERS
ART DEPARTMENT ASSISTANT - REGAN EASTLAND
STAGING FAB DESIGN - ERIK EASTLAND, TOMMY ROSE
LIGHTING DESIGNER - AL GURDON
LIGHTING DIRECTORS - BEN GREEN, HARRY FORSTER
LIGHTING DIRECTORS/ PROGRAMMERS - MARK HUMPHREY, ERIC MARCHWINSKI
LIGHTING SYSTEM TECH - JONATHAN MARTIN
PRE-VIS TECH - ALEX FASCIOLO
GAFFER - ALEN SISUL
STAGING SUPERVISORS - TONY HAUSER, CAP SPENCE, DOUG COOK
FIELD TEAM MANAGERS - BRYAN RANSOM, HOLLY SILBER
FTM COORDINATOR - ROMA RAMCHANDANI
ARTIST CAMP:
CREATIVE DIRECTOR - AAKOMON JONES
SHOW DESIGN/ PRODUCER - BAZ HALPIN
DESIGNER - VINCENT RICHARDS
COSTUME DESIGNER/ ARTIST - TANJA CALDWELL
COSTUME SUPERVISOR/ ARTIST - SHAY’LA JACKSON-BANKS
CO-COSTUME SUPERVISOR/ ARTIST - DEVON PATTERSON
MANAGEMENT - RONALD LAFITTE, LARRY TULL
BUSINESS PARTNER/ CONSULTANT - JOHNTA AUSTIN
TOUR & LOGISTICS MANAGER - MICHAEL “HUGGY” CARTER
PRODUCTION MANAGER - ROBERT “HYDRO” MULLIN
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR - CHRISTINE MULLIN
CHOREOGRAPHERS - CORNITHEA “RIO” HENDERSON, MUKHTAR O MUKHTAR
ASSISTANT CHOREOGRAPHER - AMY ALLEN
COSTUME DESIGNER - TANJA CALDWELL
COSTUME SUPERVISOR - SHAY’LA BANKS
COSTUME CO-SUPERVISOR - RAEDEL ORTIZ
COSTUME SUPERVISOR - CHELSEA STAEBELL
ASSISTANT COSTUME DESIGNERS - JANELLE CAROTHERS, ERICA RICE
COSTUME COORDINATOR/ FIELD CAST - BREANI WILLIAMS
KEY COSTUMERS - JADE GRAHAM, JOCELYN KUAN, IVA MARQUES-AUSTIN
COSTUMER - TAMMY FEY, SHERMANIQUE JOHNSON
SCREENS CONTENT CREATION - TOM COLBOURNE
SCREENS PRODUCERS - RICHARD CULLEN, DREW FINDLEY, JASON RUDOLPH
VENDOR PARTNERS:
ROC NATION
JESSE COLLINS ENTERTAINMENT
DIVERSIFIED PRODUCTION SERVICES
ESM
ALL ACCESS STAGING
C2W RIGGING
FUSE VIDEO
PIXMOB
PYROTECHNICO
PRG
MICHAEL CURRY DESIGN
ICON IMAGING
ATK AUDIO
BLINK VIDEO CONTENT