Super Bowl XLVII

Re: Super Bowl XLVII

Phenomenal production for the half time show for the first time in a while, in my opinion!

Any idea what caused the power outage?

i agree about the production. I thought they did a great job with Beyonce blending her live mic with the recorded one. And no, I'm not being sarcastic....

the power outage though. Wow. Worst nightmare for the facilities guys. Something serious must have blown up....
 
Re: Super Bowl XLVII

i agree about the production. I thought they did a great job with Beyonce blending her live mic with the recorded one. And no, I'm not being sarcastic....

the power outage though. Wow. Worst nightmare for the facilities guys. Something serious must have blown up....

Wow!
The mix I heard her vocal was WAY louder than the backing track and the 2 girl singers. Time Warner Cable in NYS.
 
Re: Super Bowl XLVII

I'm confused what mix you guys were hearing, I heard the same thing as John, to me the mix was absolutely awful. (WIVB Buffalo via DirecTV)
 
Re: Super Bowl XLVII

Re the power outage the first serious idea we had among my local tech colleagues was that someone pulled the wrong disconnect when trying to pull the power feed from the halftime show, though according to the sources the on-air guys were using it was a problem with the feed outside the stadium. (Other not-so-serious ideas ranged from Beyonce's show using too much power, needing to put $2 Ace Hardware surge protectors on each light [since they kept saying that a "surge" had occurred], sun spots, Generac (or MQ, or insert other generator manufacturer) revenge for not being allowed to have ad space)

Did anyone else get a kick out of the power "slowly ramping back up here in the next 15 minutes"? Like they were waiting for the hamster wheel to gain momentum.
 
Re: Super Bowl XLVII

Re the power outage the first serious idea we had among my local tech colleagues was that someone pulled the wrong disconnect when trying to pull the power feed from the halftime show...
Did anyone else get a kick out of the power "slowly ramping back up here in the next 15 minutes"? Like they were waiting for the hamster wheel to gain momentum.
The idea of the wrong disconnect sounds plausible, but I question the timing - power went out a fairly long time after they struck the stage.
As for the hamster, I don't think power coming up all at once would be desirable - the lamps would need the greatest amount of time to come up to full brightness. Someone probably was being extra careful to not add other problems to an already bad situation.

frank
 
Re: Super Bowl XLVII

Mix was bad here too.
(Southern Cal, Time-Warner cable.)

My heart almost stopped when the lights died. Can't imagine the mad-dash and stress that went on behind the scenes to get those lights back on. If they are like gymnasium lights that take 5-min to cool down then 5 to start back up plus the time it takes to isolate the problem and fix it. Been in situations like that and imagine it's 100 times worse because the eyes of the world are watching!

Although it did seem to put the wind back in SF's sails after that 108yd kickoff touchdown -I'm sure the conspiracy theories of an SF induced outage are running wild :)
 
Re: Super Bowl XLVII

So what % do you think was done live?

I mean obviously there was a pre-recorded safety for the whole performance, but they did seem to use at least some of the live bits.

i think Alicia Keys was live. The kids choir was definitely recorded and I think Jennifer Hudson was too. I think Most of beyonce's singing parts were more recorded than live, although they did a very good job riding that so she could shout out between portions of the program, and there were a couple places near the end that she was definitely more live than recorded cause you could hear the mic handling noise. The parts that were recorded were just a little clean sounding. Not enough stadium reverb in them. You could hear that stadium sound come and go as they rode her mic up and down.

obviously all the other parts (band, backing vocals, etc.) of the main program were not live.

thats my completely uninformed opinion.... :)
 
Re: Super Bowl XLVII

Just not enough vocal at all, I watched via the stream from the website, so I'm not sure who handles that mix, But I only heard recorded backing tracks for halftime. Didn't hear anything of Beyonce recorded for her part.

Couldn't hear either of the other two that joined her. The video floor/wall was well done. That was a cool effect.
 
Re: Super Bowl XLVII

I got the opposite, Adam - too much Beyonce
She was definitely live, the excess strain in her voice was all too obvious with her vocal being so loud compared to the backing track (backup vox and music) that was barely audible on my feed. She really didn't do all that much singing anyway, there were a couple verses but she spent more time with the mic at her side anyway (or yelling over the top of the backing track)


Re the disconnect option, I thought the timing was a bit long for that, but it depends on what and where things were fed from - it is possible they were going around disconnecting other things (ie, what looked like lights at the top of the building behind the stage, on what I think was the side that the power ended up going out on, not just the screens/lights on the stage which as always is swiftly moved out)? Or it could be as the press releases claimed and that it was external to the stadium.

5 minutes to cool down? Maybe if you're in 30 degree weather lol. But yes, there is nothing worse than waiting for pressurized lamps to cool down so that they will actually strike again, when you need them ASAP...

I know football commentators probably don't really know a light bulb from a smartphone, except that one provides light and the other is a bulb (har har har) and I can understand the staggered powerup of the lamps, but the way it was worded it was made to seem that the lights were slowly getting brighter as the power was ramped up... (It is entirely probable that I'm being overly nitpicky with wording in a rushed improv on national tv though.)

For the record, I'm overly nitpicky ;)
 
Re: Super Bowl XLVII

Re the power outage the first serious idea we had among my local tech colleagues was that someone pulled the wrong disconnect when trying to pull the power feed from the halftime show, though according to the sources the on-air guys were using it was a problem with the feed outside the stadium. (Other not-so-serious ideas ranged from Beyonce's show using too much power, needing to put $2 Ace Hardware surge protectors on each light [since they kept saying that a "surge" had occurred], sun spots, Generac (or MQ, or insert other generator manufacturer) revenge for not being allowed to have ad space)

Did anyone else get a kick out of the power "slowly ramping back up here in the next 15 minutes"? Like they were waiting for the hamster wheel to gain momentum.

I heard it blamed on an electrician from Rhino Staging, who has the stage hand contract for the Superdome. I doubt that is actually the cause, but it's fun to speculate about...
 
Re: Super Bowl XLVII

Official word from the building's management company:
"Shortly after the beginning of the second half of the Super Bowl in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, a piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality in the system. Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed and opened a breaker, causing power to be partially cut to the Superdome in order to isolate the issue. Backup generators kicked in immediately as designed. Entergy and SMG subsequently coordinated start up procedures, ensuring that full power was safely restored to the Superdome. The fault-sensing equipment activated where the Superdome equipment intersects with Entergy’s feed into the facility. There were no additional issues detected."
 
Re: Super Bowl XLVII

5 minutes to cool down? Maybe if you're in 30 degree weather lol. But yes, there is nothing worse than waiting for pressurized lamps to cool down so that they will actually strike again, when you need them ASAP...

The Mercedes-Benz Superdome has metal halide fixtures, which require 5 to 6 minutes to strike. A cool
down time of 15 minutes must be allotted between shutting off the lights and re-strike.

Page 35, http://www.neworleansarena.com/uploads/FacilitiesGuide072412.pdf
 
Re: Super Bowl XLVII

Indeed, and as I said, its aggravating having to wait for pressurized lamps (be it metal halide, sodium vapor, mercury vapor though they're "illegal" now, etc) to cool down enough to restrike when you need them ASAP. We've had to call shows at the park where I work because of a power flicker before - Sound remained fine, lighting control remained fine, static lights were fine, but when most of the light for the show is provided by movers using HPLs and they all douse simultaneously and will not be able to restrike for at least 15 minutes, it makes for a pretty dark show.

(PS, I don't know if my comment was misread? I was saying 5 minutes to cool down, mentioned in the post I was replying to, was an inordinately short time frame for HPLs to cool down enough to restrike)
 
Re: Super Bowl XLVII

(PS, I don't know if my comment was misread? I was saying 5 minutes to cool down, mentioned in the post I was replying to, was an inordinately short time frame for HPLs to cool down enough to restrike)

Not a misread comment at all, I was just providing a cited confirmation of your statement. I find it a lot of fun to have everyone here piece together the most likely scenario, but in this case there is a concrete explanation of the situation.