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Super Bowl’s Club Nomadic – Literally
When the Super Bowl rolls around in February, and a week of parties comes to host city Minneapolis, there will be one building that includes concerts by The Chainsmokers and Florida Georgia Line, and others, and then it will disappear in a puff of smoke.
– Club Nomadic
Club Nomadic, which was still being put together at press time, is a 64,000-square-foot building, with three mezzanine levels and a 9,000 capacity. Earlier this year, during the Super Bowl in Houston, Club Nomadic was there, too – hosting Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars and The Chainsmokers. It was eventually broken down, put on approximately 65 trucks., and driven to Minneapolis. The building, which is south of the city at the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel, will probably be in some other city next year, but who knows where.
“I want to take it to [the Kentucky Derby] or Sundance someday,” Jack Murphy, the creative force behind the venue, told Pollstar. “It’s modular; we can make it different sizes for different events.”
Murphy, who was instrumental in creating DirecTV’s Super Saturday Night, which originally took place 13 years ago outside Dallas’
“Dave Matthews played Thursday night, sold out in two minutes, and loved the intimate setting,” Murphy said. He took the idea to Houston for this year’s Super Bowl but, to keep the NIMBYs happy, promised a building that would vanish, even as he poured a concrete foundation.
“The whole city was outraged,” he said. “Once they saw this going up they thought, ‘This thing isn’t coming down.’ The mayor had to go on national TV, there was so much uproar. So, we did a really good job of working through the communities.”
The next project, in Minneapolis, would be a permanent building, which is under construction: a partnership with Ned Abdul, the owner of the iconic – but completely empty – Armory, which is soon to open as the 300,000-square-foot Nomadic Live!, featuring two levels of parking and is expected to host 35,000 guests during Super Week, then stick around for a really long time.
On Location Experiences – Club Nomadic – Houston
Club Nomadic, earlier this year in Houston
“It’s going to be one of the most beautiful venues at that size. I mean it is beautiful,” he said. “We’re bringing a whole week of programming.”
It was during construction that he got a message through LinkedIn to bring the portable Club Nomadic to the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel, even though it was only 40 minutes outside of Minneapolis.
“They said, ‘We saw what you did in Houston. Would you be able to do something here at the casino? We have a different demo.’ So I flew up,” he said, realizing that the two buildings would be symbiotic.
Super Bowl Sunday party lineups are about to be announced, along with more major headliners, for both venues, and Murphy is highly anticipating the onsales.
“Once I book the talent, I can start to sell the hospitality side,” Murphy said. “That’s important because I only have 6,000 GA in either building. We’re right now starting on the interior and will have everything ready to go second week of December.”