Throwing a Super Bowl XLII Party - Tips from the Pros

Audioholics has long had a history of throwing incredibly technologically-advanced Super Bowl parties. We like to divulge our plans to readers before the big game, in the hope that we can give you some tips on throwing a successful, and memorable, party of your own. When throwing a Super Bowl Party there are some basic guidelines to all but guarantee everyone has a great time. If you follow these guidelines you're sure to have a momentous party and provide lots of food, fun and festivity for all. It isn't hard to plan and execute a flawless event, but wanted to toss out some cool tips, suggestions and fun ideas that will help make Super Bowl XLII a real success for all involved (everyone except the losing team, that is!)

Great Food

First off you need great food. Why do I put this first? Simple - without good food your (male) guests will starve to death during the big game, thus ruining your chances for anyone ever coming to your house ever again. OK, maybe it's not that bad, but men like good food - and they don't want to think about it much during the event. Also, you want to make sure you don't have your wife or significant other running around the whole time serving you - do that and you're likely to not be allowed to host Super Bowl XLIII next year. No, the food has to be good but it has to be simple, or at least simple to eat. With that said, there are several alternative tactics:

Pizza and Your Favorite Beverages
Sure you can dazzle everyone with lots of dainties and hors d'oeuvres, or you can go simple. I don't know anyone who doesn't like the concept of simply reaching over and grabbing a drink and a slice of pizza (or 3 or 4) while watching the game. This is the simplest plan, often involves the least amount of money and is a sure-fire way to make the event food-licious and successful. Throw in some wings if you can afford it.

Hors D'oeuvres Galore
Got a penchant for finger food? Instruct all your guests to bring some kind of hot finger food dish and sit back and watch the delicacies arrive. I haven't yet been disappointed by this approach, and indeed we've gotten some real crowd-pleasers using this method of food acquisition. If you're concerned about the number of guests you can always prepare a few of your own morsels ahead of time as supplemental "just-in-case" dishes that will ensure everyone has plenty to eat. Assign yourself or someone else the task of bringing the drinks and be sure to have plenty of coolers and ice on-hand. If you want to line up anything special, be sure to hit the stores early as Super Bowl Sunday is a tad late to be stockpiling - especially during half-time. Some of my favorites:

• Shrimp appetizers – they are succulent, popular, and possibly the best seafood in existence. Plus they can be served chilled, which is a plus for parties.

• Hot wings – Leave the barbecue style and bring on the hot sauce. Don't forget the Chunky Blue Cheese dressing (Ranch is for sissies) and try to bake or grill them so that the wings aren't undercooked or fatty. They are less messy and best-served when well-done, but juicy.

• Pizza – Just cause you're serving appetizers doesn't mean you can't toss in a large pizza. My favorite is Hawaiian (Canadian bacon and pineapple) and typically these always get eaten first.

• Swedish meatballs – I love them. You love them. Just admit it.

• Taquitos - These are a nice filler appetizer that should be accompanied by hot sauce and some kind of salsa. Beware, SAMs Club sells these in cases of 100.

You may think this list is eclectic - well it is. But this type of mixed bag of food ensures that everyone will enjoy something. Spread this list among your guests in the form of suggestions - don't be a food Nazi or you'll miss out on all of the creative and delicious items not on this list. Let your guests bring what they want, but if they ask, you'll have an arsenal of possibilities. I stay away from those cheese sticks-in-a-box as they seriously turn to rubber after the first hour. As for drinks, we typically provide sweet tea and lemonade. Everyone else is tasked to bring what they want to contribute - which works well and let's us concentrate on food.

Pig Roast
Yeah, baby. This first came into play when I lived in South Carolina and was a local favorite, but it's also reared its head in the area of Florida where I live. Basically, you get a pig. You marinate the pig. You acquire or borrow a large smoker, grill, rotisserie, or rock-lined pit. You roast said pig for many, many hours until delicious and tender. This is best done on-site and I guarantee, if done correctly, you will be remembered well into many many future Super Bowl parties. The pig roast is a lot of work, but it is by far one of the coolest twists to the Super Bowl food story I've ever experienced.

Great Friends

The Super Bowl is a good time to hang out with friends you may not have seen for a while. Since it's an "event", you can often incentivize people to travel longer distances simply to hang out. When possible, you can even provide accommodations for your long-distance acquaintances. The party is also a great way to get to know your neighbors better. Invite them over and welcome them into your home for the big game. Leave your boss at work, unless he happens to be cool (like me and Gene). As for family, I get along swimmingly with mine, so I make sure they are here every year to enjoy the festivities.

The Source: Fox’ High Definition Escapades

If Fox Sports cooperates, I'll have an entire article written up next weekend that outlines Fox' HD plan for Super Bowl XLII. Arizona's University of Phoenix Stadium is sure to be packed to its retractable top with tons of HD cameras broadcasting at 720p. Fox made a (lone) decision early on in the HD-switch to go with 720p - they obviously didn't talk to consumer electronics manufacturers to find out what was being pushed down the pipe. As 1080p dawned, the broadcaster found itself in what is fast becoming a legacy format. In either case, 720p is still incredibly good to look at and most systems I've seen upscale it beautifully to 1080p. I am as anxious as anyone to hear how they handle crowd/fan noise in the surrounds as well as whether or not the roving cameras will be in greater use this game over last year's CBS-run adventure.

Next: Audio-Video Systems and Party Zones

This is the part of the party where an Audioholic (and Videoholic) differs from the mainstream. I'm going all out. I want the game to be seen from every room in the house. Heck, I'd put an extra TV in the bathroom, but that's just obscene (or is it). The bottom line is that if you can round up some additional televisions and you have some additional sources for HDTV, why not broadcast the game in multiple locations? Yeah, we didn't think there was any good reason not to either.

Zone 1: The Entrance

Fortunately for us, we have a big open space that makes up our living room and dining room. The idea here is to simply go for quantity and screen real estate. To Zone off the entrance, however, we simply utilize a television in the corner of the living room which also directs audio into the rest of the room. This is a good anchoring system for the large central living space and it truly got more use than I would have expected last year. This system is actually driven off of an HDMI 4x2 matrix switch from PureLink (prototype) which sends a duplicate HD signal from the primary A/V system over a DVIGear active HDMI optical cable. Yeah, it's pretty cool and I get audio off the same feed which I can then output to the Marantz integrated amplifier.

Gear List for Zone 1

• Westinghouse LVM-47w1 47" LCD Display review
• Scientific Atlanta Explorer 3250HD Cable Box
• Yamaha Soavo 1 Speakers 
• Marantz PM-11S1 Integrated Amplifier review
• DVIGear Fiber Optic HDMI Cable

Zone 2: The Dining Room

We do this zone by simply taking a cable feed from the bedroom and sending it to an additional cable box in the dining room. This cable box feeds dual outputs to a projector which fires across the room to the opposite wall, and an LCD television which is positioned next to the set-top box. Voila - a triple set of displays that allow viewing from any point in the conjoined living area.

Gear List for Zone 2

• Yamaha LPX-510 LCD Front Projector (720p) review
• Dell UltraSharp 2405FPW 24" LCD Display (1080i)
• Da-Lite Deluxe Insta-Theater 90" Screen info
• DVIGear SHR HDMI/DVI-D Cables
  
• Impact Acoustics analogue interconnects and speaker cables
  

As we did last year, we'll probably experiment with setting up remote sound further into the dining room. This year, we'll likely accomplish this by taking a B-speaker feed from the Marantz amplifier and routing it to a couple of RBH Sound 61-SE/R speakers situated next to the portable Da-Lite screen. The PM-11S1 integrated amplifier has more than enough power to drive these speakers and it will allow us to better control the room acoustics in both areas. The sensitivity difference between the two speakers is about 2dB @ 1W/m, so we should be able to get away with this method.

Zone 3: The Kitchen "Hang Out"

I could probably put a live rattlesnake in the kitchen and people would still hang out in there. It's just what people do at parties. With that said, I'd hate to have someone trapped in some kitchen conversation, unable to escape back to the game. For this reason I always make sure I place a TV in there. I never pre-wired the kitchen for cable (I'm just not that addicted to the news) so we typically route a cable feed from the dining room system and provide a standard definition version of the game on that television. It's simple and it works.

Gear List for Zone 3

• Niko OTP-2011R 20” LCD Television info

Zone 4: No Kids Zone

This Reference System is the featured room for our Super Bowl XLII party. There are only five real seats, so people tend to stay as long as they can hold out until nature calls or they get hungry - then the room becomes fair game. I predict a typical 70% turnover rate hourly. This is by far the most fun room to experience the game in as it includes surround sound and a large screen with full 1080p resolution. We tend to keep the room very dark, so there is excellent contrast here as well.

Gear List for Zone 4

• Marantz VP-15S1 DLP Projector info
• Carada Masquerade Screen Masking System review
  
• RBH Sound CinemaSITE Loudspeaker System review
• Denon AVR-4306 A/V Receiver review
• RPG Diffusers Absorption Panels info
• Impact Acoustics analogue interconnects and speaker cables
• DVIGear SHR HDMI Cables
• Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD DVR
• PureLink 4x2 HDMI Matrix switcher

Obviously the CinemaSITE really stands out in this room. The loudspeakers, high end Signature Series in-walls from RBH Sound are cleverly hidden in the cabinetry and I always get a kick out of the look on people's faces when I remove the wood-framed cloth grills. The Denon AVR-4306 provides plenty of power and the Marantz VP-15S1 is actually an impressive review unit that overlaps the Super Bowl party this year. Carada's new Masquerade IR-controlled motorized screen masking system is the bomb and really does an amazing job of masking movies with its black hole velvet trim. We won't be using its masking features for the big game, but it makes for an impressive demo. We'll receive Super Bowl XLII at 720p over high definition digital cable, which is compressed, but endurable. It works especially well for most of my guests who have never experienced HD up close, let alone on a big screen. I'm anxious to hear the sound this year, as I recall last year's pre-game show and half-time show sounding very nice in the surrounds. During the game, crowd noise was realistic and filled the room with a nice ambience.

Zone 5: The Great Outdoors

This year, weather-permitting, we are adding an additional zone to the Super Bowl experience - an outdoor zone. The backyard is about the greatest way to expand your living space and ensure you don't run out of room. We'll be experimenting with using a Rocketfish wireless speaker system to drive a pair of PlanterSpeakers Terra Cotta 8.20 speakers for outdoor audio. Video will be run old-school - we'll simply run a robust set of component video cables out the window and into the back yard to a high-power 2500 lumen projector made by Sharp. We'll fire the outdoor system onto a large white sheet since we don't have a third projector screen handy and want a larger size than would be typically available to us in a convenient portable format. With the higher-resolution displays inside, we don't view this as a major problem.

Gear List for Zone 3

• Sharp LCD projector (model TBD)
• PlanterSpeakers Terra Cotta 8.20 review
• Rocketfish Wireless Speaker Kit review

Conclusion

Whew. That's a lot of information, but it should give you at least a few fun ideas for the upcoming game. Let's review...

• Great food

• Great friends

• Great food (oops, did I say this already?)

• Fun with audio/video gear

Now, you may not be able to have a grand total of 6 displays and 4 dedicated audio zones in your home - but you don't need to. We blow it all out of proportion only because we can and because we really enjoy doing it. For your own party, do the best you can and make sure you enjoy the game with the people who share the experience with you. I know we will.

Happy Super Bowl!