---
title: "Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl Drones Weren’t Performing Live"
description: "The hundreds of coordinated Intel drones actually performed earlier in the week."
date: "2017-02-06"
modified: "2017-02-07"
authors:
  - name: "Will Sabel Courtney"
    job_title: "Contributor"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/will-sabel-courtney"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/tech/7390/lady-gagas-super-bowl-drones-werent-performing-live"
categories:
  - "News"
tags:
  - "Drones"
  - "Halftime"
  - "Intel"
  - "Lady Gaga"
  - "Super Bowl"
---

# Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl Drones Weren’t Performing Live

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/2017/02/lady-gaga-super-bowl-halftime-drones.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

For tech nerds like us at *The Drive*, one of the highlights of last night's Super Bowl halftime show was [Lady Gaga's opening number, in which a swarm of Intel drones danced in meticulously choreographed precision](<https://www.thedrive.com/tech/7376/lady-gagas-super-bowl-halftime-show-will-feature-hundreds-of-drones>) in the sky behind the singer while[ she performed on the roof of Houston's NRG Stadium before she descended onto the field to sing for the assembled crowd](<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txXwg712zw4>).

Well...not quite. As it turns out, Gaga's inspired pre-jump installment of Dancing With Drones didn't occur live. I[t was taped several days in advance, according to *The Verge*](<https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/5/14517954/super-bowl-2017-drones-halftime-show-lady-gaga>), which received word from Intel. The whole bit where Gaga performed "God Bless America" and Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" in front of a constellation of unmanned autonomous vehicles that formed, among other shapes, the American flag? Pre-recorded.

Blame the Federal Aviation Administration and its pesky no-fly zone around the stadium, which apparently did not include a halftime show exemption. [The FAA shut down the airspace for more than 30 miles around the Super Bowl](<https://www.thedrive.com/tech/7380/drone-buzzing-the-atlanta-falcons-pre-super-bowl-practice-was-brought-down-by-security>)—a ban, the agency clearly stated, that also included UAVs.

Live or not, however, the drone show was still one hell of a spectacle. Intel used 300 of its Shooting Star drones—quadcopters roughly the size of a hubcap—for the performance, according to *The Verge*. Each Shooting Star weighs roughly an ounce, can fly for about 20 minutes on a charge, and comes equipped with LEDs that can blast out light in four billion different colors.

## Author
Will is the former managing editor of *RIDES Magazine* and the former online editor for *0-60 Magazine*. He has worked for *Time Out New York* and *Rolling Stone*, and was the creator of *College Cars Online*, the first automotive blog specifically targeted at college students and young professionals.

### Author social links  
[Instagram](<https://instagram.com/willsabelcourtney>)  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/willscourtney>)