Live From Super LII: Game Creek Video Navigates Events Scattered Throughout Minneapolis

‘We have trucks all over the city’

Game Creek Video trucks and staff were out in full force all week in Minneapolis, serving NFL Network, ESPN, and Kraft Productions during the lead-up to Super Bowl LII, as well as onsite studio programming on game day.

Game Creek team at Super Bowl LII: Top: Chris Barrett (left), Steve DiGiacomo; Center: Brian Ristine; Bottom: Matt Caron (left), Phillip Barrett

“We’re pretty proud to have Encore as the hub of everything that’s going on here at the stadium for NFL Network, and then we have trucks all over the city,” said Senior Broadcast Engineer Brian Ristine during the week before the game. “The biggest challenge for this Super Bowl is how spread out everything is. Last year in Houston, there was the stadium, the area immediately surrounding the stadium, and Discovery Green, which was downtown and not too far away. Here they have more than half a dozen sites all over the city. There are all these things going on, and they’re not all next to each other, so you can’t easily migrate between them.”

For NFL Network, Game Creek had Encore working its Pre-Game Show at U.S. Bank Stadium on Sunday, Pride for Super Bowl Opening Night at the Xcel Energy Center on Monday and the NFL Honors and red carpet on Saturday, and Apollo at the Minneapolis Hilton to cover Commissioner Roger Goodell’s annual press conference and other pressers. In addition, Game Creek’s Liberty was on hand at the IDS Center supporting ESPN’s Super Bowl Week set, and Gemini was at the Mall of America serving Kraft Productions and the Patriots’ “Not Done Yet Network” throughout the week.

While Game Creek is no stranger to providing a parade of trucks for a single event, the scattered nature of this year’s Super Bowl events made it more challenging, with events taking place at the stadium, Mall of America, Nicollet Mall, the IDS Center, the Convention Center, the Xcel Energy Center, Northrop Auditorium, the Hilton, and other locations.

“It’s interesting because, in a way, it makes everything a little easier because you can’t multipurpose your truck; you can’t do two or three shows out of a single truck,” said Ristine. “That makes it pretty cut-and-dried. But it also becomes more complicated because, when you have trucks in a dense area, you can share resources: if one truck has extra equipment that they’re not using for the show, you can easily move it to a truck that may need equipment. You can’t do that [here] because transporting the equipment from one location to another becomes difficult.”