Super Bowl LIX: Flown Sound System Adapts Older Stadium for Game, Hip-Hop-Heavy Halftime Show Sub complement is boosted to manage the super-low end of Kendrick Lamar's performance By Dan Daley, Audio Editor Monday, February 3, 2025 - 12:26 pm
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None of the players on the Kansas City Chiefs or the Philadelphia Eagles had yet been born when the Superdome opened in New Orleans in August 1975. Now known as Caesars Superdome and still home to the NFL's Saints, the venue - the fifth-oldest in the league and the second-ever domed NFL field - is a relic of an earlier era of stadium architecture.
That's meaningful to Kirk Powell, design engineer, ATK Audiotek/Clair Global, who is overseeing the flown sound system being temporarily installed for Super Bowl LIX on Sunday and for the event's iconic halftime show, this year headlined by rapper Kendrick Lamar.
It's definitely an older sound system in there, Powell says, diplomatically.
Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show spurred enhancements to the sound system at Caesars Superdome.
The venue is a historical record of sound-system design. It started out with an Altec Lansing A5 system, which was in place for the first game played there, when the Saints lost to the Houston Oilers (now the Tennessee Titans) on Aug. 9, 1975. That system was superseded in 1996 by a Bose system later updated with 3202 and 4402 main speakers and 502B subs; the Altec system, also fitted with updated Altec 409 loudspeakers, remains in place for balcony fills and as a backup system for regular-season games.
A Veteran Venue The venue has a deeper history than most, some of it tragic. It was already 30 years old when it became the city's main refuge during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, after which the city considered bulldozing the structure. Instead, it has undergone numerous updates and renovations, including its AV systems.
It will be the backdrop for the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show featuring Lamar, which will have a high bar to clear after the Netflix presentation of December's Beyonc Bowl - Lamar's own 22 Grammy Awards (including two last Sunday), Oscar nomination, and Pulitzer Prize notwithstanding.
The show will have the benefit of an entirely new, if temporary, sound system, an L-Acoustics K2/K1 rig similar to the one used for the past two Super Bowls. It is, in fact, the third time that Powell and his staff from ATK Audiotek (acquired in 2021 by Clair Global) - show mixers Alex Guessard and Dave Natale, monitor mixers Tom Pesa and Chris Daniels, game-sound mixer Jack Bowling - along with Professional Wireless Services RF engineer Cameron Stuckey, have put a separate sound system up in the air at a Super Bowl venue. (ATK has managed the halftime sound for nearly 30 years.)
Flying Sound The move toward a flown sound system began in 2023, when the roll-out grass field at Glendale, AZ's State Farm Stadium prevented deployment of the carts that had been used for decades to trundle PA components out to the field for the halftime show (Rihanna, in that case). Until then, the halftime-dedicated sound systems were used exclusively for the music performances, with the installed house PA used for announcements and effects sound.
ATK Audiotek/Clair Global's Kirk Powell: It's a big, roofed room. So, yes, there are acoustic issues.
Since then, the temp systems have handled all the live sound for the game and related events, such as Monday's Opening Night event, where Super Bowl players and coaches are available for media interviews during their only public appearance before the Big Game. That event also serves as the first-listen for the game and halftime events.
The [halftime] show is so different than what we're doing for Opening Night, notes Powell, but we'll get a good handle on how the room feels. Having a flown system makes a lot of difference because the coverage is better and consistent: it's there all day; we're not moving it in and out during rehearsals. It's the third time we've done this, and it's a continuation of just trying to improve and tweak and see if we can make it a little bit better than last time.
The system is buttressed by a complement of KS28 and Clair Cohesion CP218 subs on the field. According to Powell, the number of subs has been increasing over the past few years, reflecting the halftime shows' production by Jay-Z's Roc Nation company, which has steered the events in a hip-hop direction since 2019. However, the Caesars Superdome's age is a factor in the system's deployment.
Acoustics and Rigging It's got really deep under-balconies, he explains. That creates a big challenge. You have to rely on the [installed] house system for the fill speakers to reach those areas. And, acoustically speaking, there are other challenges, because it's an older stadium that wasn't updated like a newer stadium would be for acoustical treatments to address, for instance, the reflectivity of a lot of exposed concrete. Plus, it's a big, roofed room. So, yes, there are acoustic issues.
Flying the temporary system was also a project, given the height of that roof: Powell says the hoist motors are on 200-ft.-long chains.
Kendrick Lamar's show production is under wraps ahead of the game, but Beyonc 's remarkable December showstopper is likely influencing its design. (Perhaps so is Lamar's ongoing and very public beef with labelmate Drake.) But, for Powell and the rest of the audio crew, it's another Big Game that gets bigger every year.
It has been a challenging year for live production: we've had the fires and an ice storm, he says. I'm really hoping that we're over the hump and can have a great show and a great game.
