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Producing one high-profile event is a feat of coordination, planning and execution. Producing four events in 36 hours at the Super Bowl is one step below madness.
But that’s what production agency Medium Rare has done for the last few years, and this year their parties are coming to the country’s biggest party town: Las Vegas.
In the days leading up to the Super Bowl, Medium Rare is bringing some of the biggest fan events to Sin City, getting more than 20,000 people in the mood for the biggest football game of the year. While it’s a monumental task, Medium Rare has success behind its properties to be able to pull it off, and big brands are all-in on the efforts.
The events—Shaq’s Fun House, Gronk Beach, SI The Party and Guy’s Flavortown Tailgate—are proven pop-ups that have cemented Medium Rare’s place as the second biggest producer at the Super Bowl outside of the NFL.
“We take really great pride in having these four monster events over the weekend. And they’re all really unique, different experiences that hit different segments of the Super Bowl market,” Adam Richman, co-founder of Medium Rare, told Adweek.
A weekend of parties
Shaq’s Fun House is first up for the Medium Rare team on the Friday before the game, and it’s the longest running of the agency’s four Super Bowl events. Launched in 2018, Medium Rare oversees all production, creative, operations, talent buying, partnerships and other details for Shaq’s Fun House.
Shaquille O’Neal is the celebrity host for a music festival that’s also part carnival and features a full midway, games, rides, and six hours of open bar and food. It’s the first event to take place at the massive XS nightclub at the Wynn resort on the Strip.
Usually, the Medium Rare team picks a big open space or parking lot to present the pop-up events, but since Las Vegas has so many built-in options, the agency partnered with the Wynn for three of its events.
“Partnering this year with the Wynn Las Vegas to bring three of our events is really fantastic, stepping up our hospitality game as well as some amazing VIP packages and experiences,” Medium Rare co-founder Joe Silberzweig told Adweek.
The XS will also host SI the Party the Saturday night before the game, a Sports Illustrated nighttime event that features music from The Chainsmokers and Kygo.
Gronk Beach, hosted by Super Bowl winner Rob Gronkowski, began in 2020 and this year will take over the Wynn’s Encore Beach Club with featured musical guest Afrojack joined by DJ Irie and Dante.
Guy’s Flavortown Tailgate—Better With Pepsi is free for more than 10,000 fans. The celebrity chef will serve custom dishes, plus musical performances from country singer Dustin Lynch and DJ Diplo in the hours leading up to the game in a space behind the Linq just off the Strip.
Bringing in the brands
This is the sixth year Medium Rare has produced Super Bowl events, and each year its productions have gotten bigger, attracting more brands.
“We targeted the Super Bowl because clearly it’s the biggest weekend for sports entertainment of the year, but we saw it was underserved from an experiential standpoint where most of the events were for the super affluent and not for the general consumer,” said Silberzweig.
The agency wanted to insert fun for all into the Super Bowl experience, so they started with Shaq’s Fun House, proved the concept and grew with Gronk Beach. Guy Fieri was added along with the SI party, and all were designed to appeal to a wide audience. Fieri’s tailgate is free, while prices for the other events are accessible for most fans.
Medium Rare has seen increased demand from brands that want to be present at the Super Bowl weekend without being an official NFL partner and without paying $7 million for a 30-second commercial, and its celebrity partners offer a high profile way to connect with fans.
Not only do sponsors get their messages delivered at the events, they are able to amplify them through the followers of the celebrity hosts.
“It’s almost like getting a mini Super Bowl commercial, because Shaq is your ambassador on Super Bowl weekend and he’s out there in the media talking about it. He’s on social media, doing posts, doing content, talking about what he just did with your brand that Super Bowl weekend,” said Richman.
Silberzweig noted that Medium Rare’s festival properties are jointly owned 50/50 with the celebrity hosts, which lets them build their business and their equity.
“These events do very well monetarily, but the media marketing value is enormous. Then, these events serve as almost appetizers for brand partners to get in business with a Shaq or a Gronk,” said Silberzweig.
Pepsi is the main sponsor of Fieri’s Tailgate, while Captain Morgan is a presenting sponsor for the SI party. Gronk’s sponsors include Nutrl, Monster Energy and Cash App, while Shaq’s include Pepsi, Papa Johns and DeLeon Tequila.
Medium Rare customizes packages for each brand. They meet with each one to learn what the brand’s KPIs are, then build out a custom package based on what they’re looking to achieve.
“It’s never about a logo slap. It’s never about giving them signage. It’s about coming up with something that’s going to go viral and make noise beyond the event,” said Richman, who pointed to last year’s chicken wing eating contest with former NFL stars Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson and LeSean McCoy sponsored by Tums.
There will be roughly 50 brand sponsors across the four events, and Medium Rare acts as both event producer and brand activation agency. That means its normal staff of 11 grows to 311, and that’s just at the managerial level, with 300 independent contractors, including production managers, operations managers and security heads, as well as thousands of hourly staff for tasks like bartending and stagehands.
To learn more about the Medium Rare events and to get tickets, visit the Medium Rare website.
