Six months of preparation translated into a 13-minute Super Bowl Halftime Show. The NFL took fans behind the scenes for the first time on Friday (March 14) with a look into how Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show took form.
The NFL released a 32-minute mini-documentary on YouTube showcasing how the performance went from an idea to the big stage in New Orleans as more than 133 million fans watched at home.
Bruce Rodgers served as the creative director and production designer for Kendrick’s performance; it was Rodgers’ 19th Super Bowl Halftime Show.
“This literally will change the way you do halftime. We’ll have to have a full team building the square, same with the diamond, same with the circle,” he said of the video game-themed stage for Lamar.
PgLang creative director Mike Carson was also heavily involved with the performance, and he hopped on countless Zooms and calls with Rodgers while bouncing ideas off him about the stage, lighting and performance.
Before GNX even dropped, one of the early hurdles was finding a pristine 1987 Buick GNX for the performance, which was gutted to have 30 of the 400 dancers emerge from the car.
“The car is the icon of this era for him as far as album covers [GNX], in the video, so it was only right to have it as part of the performance,” Carson said.
Five hundred crew members were involved in the shuttling of the stage on and off the field in eight minutes. Even though the Caesars Superdome is indoors, they opened the vents due to the use of pyrotechnics and had to take measures for possible inclement weather, which ended up working out.
Kendrick impressed with his heavily anticipated performance — including bringing “Not Like Us” to the global stage — which saw an assist from SZA and a Serena Williams cameo.
Lamar drew a 153% bump in streams in the week following his Super Bowl performance in New Orleans on Feb. 9, which pushed GNX back to No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
Over a month later, Kendrick still holds three of the top five slots on the Billboard Hot 100, including his sixth No. 1 hit with “Luther.”
Watch the NFL’s mini-doc below.
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