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Review Super Bowl XLVIII : Halftime Show : Bruno Mars

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Accompanied by a light show that featured 80,000 fans with illuminated hats, pop star Bruno Mars rocked the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday with a selection of his hits including Treasure and Runaway Baby. Dressed in a glittery, '50s style jacket and narrow tie, the bouffant-topped singer danced across the stage as fire effects and fireworks lit up East Rutherford, New Jersey's Met Life Stadium.

He was backed by alternative rockers the Red Hot Chili Peppers, whose lead singer Anthony Kiedis strutted out onto the stage shirtless and in shorts even as the temperature dropped to 7 degrees Celsius, belting out the group's 1991 hit Give it Away. Mars later rolled on a round stage out to the centre of the field to perform Just the Way You Are, which earned him the first of his two Grammy Awards, completing his performance. The Hawaiian-born R&B singer follows performers from previous years who include Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen and Prince in singing at what is far and away the most-watched U.S. sporting event.

Ayrton MagicPanel™ 602 Dazzles at the Super Bowl XLVIII

At Mars’ request, the show was to replicate an atmosphere as close to a live rock concert as possible, a factor which helped determine the high-octane style of Barnhart’s design. The MagicPanel banks gave Barnhart a blank canvas which he could use to amaze the audience or integrate with the rest of the lighting - possibilities which he used to the full by employing MagicPanel as both a lighting fixture and a projector through which to run video content. Throughout the show MagicPanel ran the gamut of appearances: a subtle of a sea of golden light, which echoed the gold jackets of Mars and his band, accompanied ‘Treasure’ as the MagicPanel units turned slowly and independently with random sparkle patterns radiating from each independently controlled LED emitter. This gave way to the drama of red blocks of light blasting at full power into the sky with the arrival of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on stage for ‘Give it Away’.

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Clay Paky B-EYEs and Sharpys shines on Super Bowl Halftime Show

Lighting designer Bob Barnhart opted to have “a more rock ‘n roll vibe in the rig than the stylized, choreographed shows that we’ve seen in the past.  Bruno wanted this to be more of a live rock show.” Barnhart was challenged to capture that rock ‘n roll sensibility as well as prepare for winter weather conditions that might envelop the open-air MetLife stadium in New Jersey.  “It was a question of what we could design that could survive severe weather,” he says.  “Another factor was the limitations of rigging positions in the building and how we could symmetrically lay out the rig.  We had to cover as much of the full stadium with the stage pushed back against the audience as we could.” Barnhart calls the Sharpys “workhorses” and says that, “one of the goals in an outdoor stadium is to maintain an atmosphere to maintain the beam; that’s hard to do with high winds.  But Sharpy is a very fast instrument with an extremely tight, bright beam.”  He placed Sharpys on the three balcony facias throughout the stadium, on a series of trusses and around the main stage hanging them in clusters of three or six for symmetry.

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ATK Audiotek Rocks Halftime Show at Super Bowl XLVIII

For the event, ATK Audiotek deployed 16 of its custom-designed field carts, which allow for easy transport and setup of the JBL VERTEC loudspeakers on and off the field. The system featured 14 carts equipped with four boxes of VT4889 line array elements (56 total), two carts with five boxes of 4889’s (10 total), and each cart was also equipped with two VT4880A fullsize arrayable subwoofers (36 total). Additionally, ATK Audiotek mounted eight VRX932 Constant Curvature loudspeakers on the back of several carts for field fold back, deployed four VT4886 loudspeakers on two popup stands for coverage of the seats behind the stage, and used four more 4886’s for front fill. “We have come to rely on the consistent performance and sonic capabilities of JBL’s VERTEC line arrays for our systems at the Super Bowl events each year,” commented Kirk Powell, Engineer in Charge for ATK Audiotek. “The Super Bowl is always the most-viewed television event of the year and when you add in the live-broadcast aspect you need to have a system that delivers high quality results with no failures. JBL’s gear has more than met that requirement and that’s why we continue to go back to the VERTEC’s every year.”

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Touchdown: Super Bowl Halftime Show Plays Along with grandMA2

The Super Bowl Halftime Show always glitters, and Bruno Mars’s and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’s stellar performance at Super Bowi XLVIII was no exception. This year a grandMA2 light took command of the media. Lighting designer Bob Barnhart opted to have “a more rock ‘n roll vibe in the rig than the stylized, choreographed shows that we’ve seen in the past. Bruno wanted this to be more of a live rock show.” Barnhart was challenged to capture that rock ‘n roll sensibility as well as prepare for winter weather conditions that might envelop the open-air MetLife stadium in New Jersey. “It was a question of what we could design that could survive severe weather,” he says. “Another factor was the limitations of rigging positions in the building and how we could symmetrically lay out the rig. We had to cover as much of the full stadium with the stage pushed back against the audience as we could.”

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Strictly FX Makes the Super Bowl Halftime Special

The finale, an artistically programmed pyro infused masterpiece that exploded high over MetLife Stadium, included 400’ red comets, 400’ silver wave chrysanthemums with tails, 275’ white crackle comets with tails and 200’ blue mines with tails. “Last year during Beyoncé’s performance, there were a lot of opportunities or moments for effects. This year, there was the finale, which the whole show was based upon,” says Super Bowl Halftime Special Effects Designer and Strictly FX Partner Mark Grega. The opening moments of the Halftime spectacular also included pyro- this time in the form of 100’ snowball mines,  140‘ silver comets as well as 138 total ultra bright tracer comets. ”The snowball mines are new product from our manufacturer Ultratec, and they’re very impressive,” comments Grega.  For “Locked Out of Heaven,” pyro was also present. “We had some silver comets with tails into the first chorus located upstage of the band, as well as green and yellow mines on the roof. For ‘Treasure,’ the rooftop had a number of big gold and silver glitter mines, and gold glitter comets,” the Special Effects Designer explains.

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Bruno Mars Delivers Record-Breaking Halftime Performance at Super Bowl XLVIII

The stars aligned during Super Bowl XLVIII on the evening of February 2 as Bruno Mars delivered an unforgettable halftime performance to a record-breaking broadcast audience of 115.3 million viewers – the largest in Super Bowl history. For the duration of the performance, Bruno Mars sang through his Sennheiser SKM 5200 handheld transmitter, coupled with an MD 5235 dynamic microphone capsule, ensuring crisp and detailed sound for millions of fans around the world.During the 12-minute set, which included his top hits “Locked Out of Heaven,” “Treasure” and “Just the Way You Are,” Bruno Mars showcased his versatility as an entertainer with a dramatic drum-solo introduction, James Brown-inspired dance moves, and an instantly recognizable soulful voice captured by Sennheiser. Working alongside veteran production provider ATK Audiotek, Bruno Mars’ production team – including monitor engineer James Berry and front-of-house engineer Derek Brener – specified Sennheiser SKM 5200 handheld transmitters and MD 5235 capsules for each of the three vocalists on stage, including Bruno Mars. In addition, all of Bruno Mars’ performers were equipped with Sennheiser 2000 Series wireless monitoring systems. “It was rock solid perfection, just as we expected,” says Berry. “Everything just worked, and we had no problems.”

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wysiwyg Wins Big at Super Bowl XLVIII

Lighting Designer Robert Barnhart from Full Flood designed the exciting halftime show featuring Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He worked with Tom Thompson from Prelite on the previsualization, who used wysiwyg R32 to realize Barnhart’s vision. The 130 linear yard design (119 meters) included almost 1000 fixtures, 2000 feet (609 meters) of LED tape, a moving drum set, 4 on-stage lifts, video and 80,000 PixMob hats for the audience. wysiwyg R32 was used to bring the halftime show to life long before the whistle blew. Thompson and Lighting Director Pete Radice did pre-programming at PRG in early January. Once the project team was on site in New Jersey, while they continued programming on the previz system throughout the week prior to the show, most of the time they were able to use the real rig. Radice explains, “We continued on wysiwyg while in New Jersey. We set up the system as soon as it rolled off the truck and continued on. By the time we got to the stadium we had most of the cue structure in place, but didn't have a time code track yet. Once we got that, I was able to work on that through our previz system, while the guys were doing the real work in the cold and snow. I also continued using the previz system after we were fully setup, so the crew could wring out the system without me bothering them while I took care of cue notes via previz.

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