The celebratory, symbolic set design for Unhealthy Bunny’s Tremendous Bowl halftime present allowed the artist to “make his feedback in a manner that felt elegant,” in accordance with its inventive director Harriet Cuddeford.
Puerto Rican artist Unhealthy Bunny, whose actual title is Benito Antonio MartÃnez Ocasio, headlined the present in the course of the sixtieth Tremendous Bowl soccer sport, which happened at Levi’s Stadium in California on 8 February 2026.
The present was a celebration of Latin American tradition and was filled with symbolism, becoming for the primary artist to carry out this occasion predominantly in Spanish.
To create the immersive setting by way of which the efficiency unfolded, the artist labored intently with Cuddeford and present designer Yellow Studio, which additionally devised the staging for the Grammy Awards final week.
From the present’s conception, the intention was to create “one thing that feels cinematic, that tells a narrative, and that exhibits a journey,” Cuddeford advised Dezeen. “For Benito – entrance and centre of all the pieces – he stated: ‘I need to signify Latino folks. I need to get them to be seen and beloved and proven on the largest stage on the earth’.”
On the similar time, he wished “to talk to everybody” and “rejoice the issues that make life price dwelling: dancing, music, love, household, togetherness,” Cuddeford added.
The design staff travelled to Puerto Rico – a US territory within the Caribbean – to absorb the tradition and discover inventive inspiration earlier than storyboarding after which producing the 15-minute present.
They reworked the soccer pitch right into a panorama that echoes the island’s grassy fields, and included a number of references to its structure, infrastructure and tradition.
Alongside a steady “surreal journey” from one finish of the soccer subject to the opposite, this collection of interconnected buildings created vignettes for Unhealthy Bunny – in addition to particular friends Woman Gaga and Ricky Martin – to carry out inside whereas additionally connecting to the music’s themes.
To start with, the digital camera adopted the headliner alongside a path lower by way of tall grass that represented Puerto Rico’s agricultural heritage.
He handed distributors resembling taqueros, piragüeros, and nail technicians, “paying homage to on a regular basis folks,” earlier than arriving at La Casita – a illustration of a conventional rural Puerto Rican home that beforehand appeared throughout his residency on the island final 12 months.
“La Casita has been an enormous architectural and design contact level of the entire marketing campaign,” stated Cuddeford, in order that they recreated the pink construction for this present, full with a porch, louvred home windows and lanterns.
Subsequent, an actual marriage ceremony ceremony and social gathering happened on an elevated stage modelled on a plaza in Puerto Rico’s capital, San Juan.
A recreation of a Latino neighbourhood in New York Metropolis included a bodega, a barbershop and a devoted recreation of the Caribbean Social Membership in Brooklyn – from which its proprietor, Toñita, handed Unhealthy Bunny a shot.
“The extent of element in these in these buildings was loopy,” Cuddeford stated. “We wished to make it as genuine as we presumably might, as we did throughout the entire design, ensuring that all the pieces was so culturally on level and genuine.”
Extra nods to Puerto Rico included a pair of white plastic chairs set towards a backdrop of plantain vegetation, which function on Unhealthy Bunny’s album art work for his sixth, Debà Tirar Más Fotos.
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Additionally, a collection of climbable energy strains that intermittently sparked the island’s struggling electrical energy grid – a reason for ongoing political pressure, which Unhealthy Bunny addresses in his music El Apagón.
“That was a extremely enjoyable design component for me,” stated Cuddeford. “I wished him to have the ability to climb, and do stunts and aerial work,” regardless of the artist being afraid of heights, she famous.
The set concluded with a parade of flags from a number of nations throughout the Americas, and a soccer launched initially returned inscribed with the message “Collectively we’re America” and an enormous billboard atop the stadium displayed the phrase “The one factor extra highly effective than hate is love”.
“The intention was to speak about issues and take a look at issues, however not be on the nostril, too descriptive, or attempt to jam issues down folks’s throats,” Cuddeford stated. “Let’s have pleasure and celebration and enjoyable, however let’s additionally make his feedback in a manner that felt elegant, and that folks might uncover in the event that they wished to.”
Producing such an formidable dwell manufacturing in the midst of a serious sporting occasion offered a number of challenges from a logistics standpoint.
The stadium itself had no roof or rigging, Cuddeford defined, and the efficiency was additionally scheduled throughout daytime.
To load the staging on and off the sector throughout the time constraints, all the parts have been constructed on “carts” that measured no bigger than 24 by eight ft. These additionally needed to weigh below 5,000 lbs, in order to not injury the taking part in floor beneath.
Something over 10 ft tall (3 metres), together with the ability strains and palm timber, needed to be hinged and unfolded as soon as in place. “It is actually constrictive what you are able to do, so we needed to suppose cleverly,” Cuddeford stated.
With a capability stretching to upwards of 80,000, Levi’s Stadium was accomplished in 2014 by HNTB as a house for the San Francisco 49ers NFL staff, and has additionally performed host to different sports activities and music occasions.
Throughout this 12 months’s Tremendous Bowl, some blind and low-vision followers have been be capable to expertise soccer extra straight because of tactile gadgets that vibrate to point the place of the ball on the sector.
The pictures is by Alamy except acknowledged in any other case.
