As the BBC will tell you, viewers of the Super Bowl's first halftime production in 1960 were treated to the University of Arizona Symphonic Marching Band's rendition of "The Liberty Bell." That's it. Seriously. Suffice to say that production costs have sky-rocketed since. That's thanks to the extremely complicated logistics involved in stage assembly, costume changes, and audio. "There are so many aspects of it, the dancers, the lighting elements, the special effects," Roc Nation's Dan Parise, who has produced the show with the NFL, told Reuters. "It's like a big jigsaw puzzle."
To give you an idea, setting up and taking down the halftime show is so complicated that the NFL starts planning it a year ahead of time. Right around the time that The Weeknd performed at the 2021 show? The NFL was working with artists and scouting locations for 2022. Meanwhile, NFL's senior vice president for programming and production Mark Quenzel confirmed to Reuters that an astonishing 2,000-3,000 people are involved in the show's logistics. The most vital of these are those involved in stage set-ups. Thirty-eight 12-person carts are required for the stage. Nineteen six-person carts are required for audio. When rehearsals start, crew members and performers often work 12-13 hour days. All of that, for what is, according to Quenzel, a detail. "It's never lost on us that we're the side show," he told Reuters.
