The power poles went through the tunnel folded down. Out on the grass, stagehands turned hand cranks until the poles stood nearly 17 feet high. Three gave acrobats places to perform. The fourth carried a grated platform for Bad Bunny.
At Super Bowl LX on February 8, 2026, those poles brought a piece of Puerto Rico to Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. Show designer Julio Himede told Surface that the set evoked the island’s recurring blackouts. When Bad Bunny came down, flags from across the Americas joined him on the field. “It represented the Americas as a whole, united together,” Himede said. The crew’s first problem had been getting that scene through a tunnel with 10 feet of clearance.
Once the poles stood upright, the open sky mattered as much as the space below them. A gust during setup could put a different decision in front of the crew than one during the act. Whatever the weather, Seattle and New England still needed the field back for the third quarter. Every minute the concert borrowed from football already had a job.
The long push before the seven-minute setup
By the time the carts reached their staging positions, the crew had already pushed the assembled scenery three-quarters of a mile from the production compound, according to All Access. Getting that much equipment onto natural grass took weeks of rehearsals. With no roof to hang speakers from, NFL entertainment operations lead Milanna Morgan told Assistants vs. Agents, “we also couldn’t rig audio or anything that would help remove some of the weight from the field.” What couldn’t hang overhead had to fit into the plan below.
In rehearsal, even the material under the wheels changed the clock. Production designer Bruce Rodgers described thick protective vinyl that slowed the carts. “We were loading in at nine minutes and loading out at eight, which caused a lot of nervousness on my side,” he told Lighting & Sound America. The team cut three carts during rehearsals. On game day, the crew moved without the tarp. “We installed in six minutes 30 seconds on show day,” Rodgers told Live Design. He timed the exit at six minutes flat. Between those two pushes came about 13 minutes of music.
How the grass learned to walk
In early December, the design called for 65 carts. NFL field operations wanted no more than 25, Rodgers recalled. So the greenery took another route onto the field. Roughly 380 performers wore grass costumes, filling out the landscape Bad Bunny walked through while sparing the crew another procession of wagons. Every person who could carry a patch of scenery out on foot freed up space for a piece that needed wheels.
The poles still needed their carts. Folded, they fit the tunnel. Halfway up, they put crew members at the cranks. Upright, they carried performers. Those three positions explain why a single wind reading tells a stage manager so little. A gust during the lift raises a question about the moving structure. The same gust during the song raises a question about someone already standing on it.
Rain would pose a different problem. A shower before halftime could leave crew members checking two surfaces in quick succession. First comes the grass where they have to turn a cart. Then comes the deck where a dancer has to plant a foot. Lose a minute waiting for the first cart to move and the crew behind it may lose that minute too.
What the kickoff reading left out
The NFL logged 67°F, 50 percent humidity and a 7 mph northwest wind at kickoff. KCRA expected temperatures to dip into the low 60s by halftime. Nearby San Jose airport recorded a 28 mph gust at some point that day. At showtime, the questions for the crew were closer to the field. How hard was the wind hitting the pole? Would a dancer’s shoe grip the deck?
For Super Bowl LX, NOAA gave National Weather Service forecasters access to its experimental Warn-on-Forecast System to support public safety. The system feeds fresh observations into rapidly updated simulations, helping forecasters spot where a dangerous storm could form up to an hour ahead. For a crew with seven minutes to build a stage, that lead time could mean checking the wind and holding a cart before its wheels ever touch the grass.
The call at the tunnel mouth
Imagine a weather update coming in just before the crew gets the field. A gust forecast might prompt a check against the limits for raising a pole. If the crew has rehearsed an alternate sequence, the performer could stay on the ground and the director could send the camera somewhere else. A lightning threat changes the scale of the call. Now stadium staff need time to get people to shelter, and the crew needs to keep the routes open. The National Weather Service recommends giving a designated monitor the authority to enforce the safety plan. Its guidance calls for waiting at least 30 minutes after the last thunder before resuming outdoor activity. That’s more than twice the length of Bad Bunny’s set.
A wind hold is worth rehearsing at show speed. Leave the pole cart where it can wait without blocking the tunnel, then send the rest of the crew through. On the field, the performer stays on the grass while the director cuts to a shot that carries the scene forward. By game day, the stage manager should be able to call the hold over the radio in a few words. Everyone else has already walked through what happens next.
In Santa Clara, the show made it all the way to the flags. Then the scenery came down, the grass costumes walked off, and Seattle kicked to New England to open the third quarter. For anyone who looked away during the changeover, it was just a football field again.
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FAQs
Q1. How long did it take to set up Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show?
A. The crew set up the show in six minutes and 30 seconds. They cleared the field in six minutes.
Q2. How did the halftime show’s power poles fit through the tunnel?
A. The crew folded the poles to fit through a tunnel with 10 feet of clearance. On the field, stagehands cranked them up to nearly 17 feet.
Q3. Why did performers dress as grass at the Super Bowl LX halftime show?
A. Roughly 380 performers wore grass costumes to fill out the set. That gave Bad Bunny a landscape to walk through while saving space for other carts.
Q4. What weather tool supported Super Bowl LX?
A. NOAA gave National Weather Service forecasters access to its Warn-on-Forecast System. It can help them spot where a dangerous storm might form up to an hour ahead.
