It was not. This was in an attempt to fulfill Bad Bunny’s desire to turn the Levi’s Stadium grounds into his home of Puerto Rico.
That was Bruce and Shelley Rodgers’ problem to solve. Their company, Tribe Inc., has been producing shows for nearly two decades, and the pair have truly become experts in how to pull off increasingly elaborate stage presentations during the allotted 26 or so minutes of a halftime show.
For Sunday’s performance, midway through the Seattle Seahawks’ rematch against the New England Patriots, the issue was gardening. Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, wanted his show to have the same look and feel as his recent Puerto Rico residency, with stages covered in palm trees and sugarcanes to recreate the atmosphere of Vega Baja, where he grew up.
In a different stadium, this could be done by rolling carts covered in plants onto the field. But Santa Clara’s Levi Stadium uses natural grass; National Football League guidelines do not allow so many carts on the field because they will tear up the grass. The team could use a maximum of 25, and they needed these for stages and other props.
Bruce Rogers’ solution was simple: dress people like plants.
As the audience watched at halftime, Bad Bunny, who performed in an all-white outfit with a number and “Ocasio” on the back like a football jersey, got a chance to dance around the set all he wanted — the casita, the vintage truck, the wedding stage — but the plants came alive in a way he couldn’t have imagined. About 380 people wore costumes resembling tall stalks of grass. The stationary palm trees and poles, in case you’re wondering, were installed the same way street lights were installed for Lamar’s street scene from Super Bowl LIX. On Sunday, they exceeded their limit of 25 vehicles equipped with so-called “turf tires” and got everything done safely on and off the field.
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