Chris Conti, chief innovation officer at PRG, engineered the lighting control system for Bad Bunny's look at a Puerto Rican village, from sugar cane fields to a typical casita for the 13-minute Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show broadcast live on NBC (with streaming on Peacock) on Sunday, February 8, 2026 from Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. For this most-watched Super Bowl Halftime Show in history, the production design is by Bruce Rodgers, with lighting by Al Gurdon. PRG supplied the lighting system – consoles, fixtures, and networking. Tony Ward, VP television and special events at PRG, works with Gurdon and his team.
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"Whether it's system design and drawing support or as an on site technician, I have been involved in some capacity for 18 years," says Conti, who engineered the control system for the 2026 show. "For the lighting system layout, I coordinate with Robb Minnotte (system tech), Alen Sisul (gaffer), and Bob Muller (fiber tech), who work together via "pre-production meetings and lots of emails and phone calls," Conti adds.
Diagram of control network
In terms of the system architecture, "the goal is to move the lighting data, which includes sACN and MA Net, around the stadium to where ever it is needed as efficiently, and as reliably as possible," Conti explains. "To do that we use a fiber optic backbone, entrainment grade ethernet switches, and high-density DMX nodes. The most challenging part is not just the scale and complexity of the show but also making sure it’s as robust and reliable as possible."
To make sure the system is as robust and reliable as possible, Conti and his team "do testing to ensure various configurations will work as expected as well as network load testing. We also do failure testing where we create common faults as well as create “what if” failures to see how the equipment will behave and to work through recovery scenarios," he points out. "This is not new or unique to the Super Bowl. It’s something we as a company have always done when ever we are asked to implement new networking equipment and or configurations that we don’t typically do. Lessons we learn from this type of testing we roll into any other show that uses that equipment or that particular configuration."
Control System Gear List
3 MA Lighting grandMA3 full-size
6 grandMA3 XL PU
20 Pathway Via 12 SFP+
8 Pathway Via 24 SFP+
58 SFP Bidi's
PRG 24 Port Hydranode x 14
PRG 8 Port Supernode x 6
2 Pathway eLink