At the edge of the stage, choreographer JaQuel Knight, known for his work with Beyoncé and Megan Thee Stallion, coached ‘Mello through his moves. Meanwhile 15 dancers, a number kept limited due to safety protocols, was through the magic of technology expanded into a fleet of 100 performers. quarantine protocols made the timeline impossible.) The Weeknd's Sales Up 385% After Super Bowl Halftime Showīack in Long Beach, Khalid came through to perform his part in “Silence” and Gomez dropped in to do her vocals for “Wolves.” (While the team tried to get Anne-Marie to SoCal to perform part on “Friends,” U.K. Both are sponsored by Pepsi both reach a massive global audience (particularly as soccer, or football as it’s referred to everywhere else in the world, is consistently ranked the world’s most popular sport) and both shows all but ensure a significant post-show sales and streaming streaming boost. Not only had this type of technology never been used before, in terms of exposure Comstock agrees that playing opening the ceremony is akin to doing the Super Bowl halftime show. The UEFA opportunity was this chance to elevate. If we don’t feel like we can elevate again, it’s not really fitting for us.” “We don’t feel like we can ever take a step back from it. “We’ve been asked to do so many of these concerts since Fortnite,” Carnegie says. For the Marshmello team, it was crucial that any subsequent virtual performance would expand on that milestone. Marshmello Performs in First In-Game 'Fortnite' Concertįor Comstock and his team, the massive streaming potential of the show wasn’t unfamiliar, with more than 10 million virtual attendees tuning in for Marshmello’s 2019 virtual performance inside Fortnite, an event considered a major evolution for how artists can connect to fans. Each year the list of potential artists is not very long.” “It’s finding the right balance between the type of music, who they are, what the performance looks like and how you create that connection. “For us and for UEFA, it’s really important that the performer resonates around the world, and you also have to have an appeal to football fans,” Ellen Healy, PepsiCo’s senior marketing director of music and entertainment, says of choosing the right artist for the gig. Meanwhile, ‘Mello and his team assembled a setlist of hits to appeal the already global star to an even larger worldwide audience, while the show’s sponsor Pepsi helped enlist guest stars Selena Gomez and Khalid. To get started, a production team first flew to Istanbul capture images of every inch of the stadium - from the seat cushions to the cracks in the walls - so the digital teams could make their virtual renderings as realistic as possible.
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How Marshmello and Manager Moe Shalizi Built Dance Music's Most Irresistible Brand
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“If there’s a chance to do something that’s like, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen something like that before,'” Comstock adds, “those are the opportunities I like to take.” “Then I saw this creative come in and I kind of forced their hand like, ‘We’re doing digital. “It was summertime last year, it was like, ‘Are we planning for another physical performance or do we completely go digital?'” says Krista Carnegie, COO of Marshmello’s management company The Shalizi Group. In the run-up to the show, the pandemic would create a significant last-minute scramble that made it so everyone involved in the performance was working on it until just days ago.īut that curveball was yet to come when the production team first pivoted to 2021, initially gathering to determine if the performance would happening virtually or in person in Istanbul, where the match was first scheduled to be played. The producer was originally scheduled to play the prestigious event - headlined by Dua Lipa in 2018 and Imagine Dragons in 2019 - in 2020, although that performance was ultimately canceled due to COVID-19. The massive effort - two years in the making - was all for Marshmello’s six-minute opening ceremony performance for the UEFA Champions League Final, happening today (May 29) in Porto, Portugal. Marshmello Is One of the Most Adaptable Stars in Modern Music - And the Charts Prove It