The Super Bowl halftime show was lit by Montreal-based PixMob for the third year in a row. Happy to find a stadium full to the brim, the president, Jean-Olivier Dalphond, says that the challenge has not yet been easier.
The Super Bowl organizers have once again placed their trust in the Quebec company to light the bleachers during the halftime show. The big boss of the company explains the nervousness that won him when he realized the magnitude of the task, in an interview with The duty a few hours before the kickoff of the high mass of American football.
“I visited the stadium last October. There, the roof, it is glass. The show starts at 5:30 p.m. I went into the stadium at that time and I was like… “oh, that’s bright!” It’s not night, it’s not in the dark. To light up the stadium at that time of day, we had to invent an extremely luminous and very powerful product,” confides Jean-Olivier Dalphond.
The challenge was up to the fifty employees based in the Chabanel district of Montreal. “It lights us up a lot,” laughs Mr. Dalphond.
Cockades distributed by the tens of thousands have thus been made to measure. Each was fitted with LED lights “about twice” brighter than a cell phone flashlight. And all of them can illuminate the stadium with 16 million different colors. “We invented them for the Super Bowl. It didn’t exist,” he explains.
The PixMob teams were also instructed to synchronize these lights and colors with the music of the show. A successful bet to see the images watched by nearly 100 million viewers.
This propensity to innovate, PixMob renews it every year. The company composed last year with the mission of “filling a stadium” half empty. About 30,000 seats were thus occupied by cardboard effigies of football fans with luminous pucks affixed to these mannequins to create the illusion of a cheerful crowd.
This year, the objective of coloring a crowd was coupled with a need to ensure its safety. PixMob was thus responsible for distributing N95 masks to all spectators in the stadium. “There are 70,000 fans who will be there in person in the stadium,” notes the president of PixMob.
From football to hockey
After the brutal fall of March 2020, when “the company lost in one week all [sa] business line in one fell swoop”, the Montreal company has worked hard to regain its relevance.
The technology developed for the 2021 Super Bowl has been used many times. The company won a contract to permanently install these luminous pellets on all the benches of the San José Sharks arena. PixMob can also boast of having contributed – modestly – to the success of the Montreal Canadiens. They were there to “fill” the Bell Center with lights during the last Stanley Cup final in Montreal.
“We wanted to help the Canadian. We had Nova technology, which we could put on empty seats. This year, we made them an offer that worked for them, recalls Jean-Olivier Dalphond. We did this in 24 hours. »
Despite his company’s technology-enlightened thousands of gigs, the PixMob president doesn’t believe the task will necessarily get any easier over time, while acknowledging the experience gained. “It’s easier, because there is more intimacy with the client, but the challenges are renewed year after year,” he says.
A sign that the attraction for light shows is undeniable, the turnover of the Montreal SME is now regaining its cruising speed. “We are starting to be back to what we were in 2020”, underlines Jean-Olivier Dalphond.