BOISE, Idaho — The Super Bowl is frequently the most watched television event of the year, but this year, a Boise company had a hand in the production of the halftime show.
“They just gave us a little, one paragraph description of 'Hey, we need some help with lighting for a quote, unquote high-profile event,” James Shawver, the owner of SWYM, said.
Last December, the electronics product development company got a call to design a wireless display for the Super Bowl's halftime show.
But at the time, they didn't know it was for the Super Bowl.
“The first thing that I thought was 'you're kidding me,' somebody in Boise doing something for the Super Bowl and it's on the opposite side of the states pretty much,”' Shawver said. “I’m like okay.”
However, the company only had a couple of months to design the display.
“The thing we were responsible for were the panels on the side, they were actually held by people that moved them around the field during various parts of the demonstration,” Mike Larsen, SWYM’s electrical engineer, said. “All of these had to be synchronized wirelessly in order for them to have the animation, it was like a giant magnetron.”
Larsen said that's about a third of a million LEDs. The company, which only consists of five people, couldn't say anything about their Super Bowl contribution until now because of a non-disclosure agreement.
“The Super Bowl was a big enough gig that I was roping in family members and basically calling in all of the help I could get,” Shawver said. "It was kind of surreal."
SWYM says they had a relationship with someone in Georgia and the job was subcontracted down to them.
As for next year's Super Bowl, they said there has been talk about it and other events, but it's too early to know.
SWYM stands for "Share What You're Making."