Noah Winter brags he’s been to way more Super Bowls than Tom Brady.
It certainly is what he’s most likely to get asked about at dinner parties. “It’s become an iconic moment,” Winter marvels, sitting in his Northridge, California, office and confetti factory.
“Just seeing the players and their kids engage with it at such a wholesome level, it brings a lot of joy to everyone on the field,” she said.
So, what goes into planning and executing a giant confetti drop? Winter fields some questions:
Artistry in Motion trucks 300 pounds (135 kilograms) of two-colored confetti for each of the teams to the Super Bowl. They bring confetti cannons onto the field with about 4 minutes remaining, and line them up around the stadium walls.
Even if the teams stream onto the field before the clock runs out, the confetti waits until the timer shows the game is officially over. And the winners’ colors get the go-ahead.
“It’s always better to be late then early,” Winter explained. “Sometimes players go out and shake hands. We don’t launch until triple zero on the clock. Over the 30 years, we never have launched the wrong color or launched too early.”
The color mix is not 50-50, because some colors dominate on video, so the company has to experiment to find the correct mix.
The company makes about 150,000 pounds (68,000 kilograms) of tissue paper a day — mostly for gift wrapping and food service.
“It’s a very prestigious but not big order,” Jones said of the Super Bowl paper.
Winter has found that a rectangular shape is best for confetti because it turns on its axis and hangs in the air.
Some people ask whether the confetti is cut by hand (it isn’t), and Winter jokes that his hands get tired.
The tiny rectangular flags of tissue paper are made from U.S.-sourced, 98% postconsumer recycled material, Winter says. The paper is biodegradable.
The company makes confetti in the colors of the four final NFL playoff teams. All that isn’t used is recycled.
The confetti makes a beautiful mess in the stadium, but cleanup isn’t Winter’s job. Every stadium uses a different approach, depending in part on the field’s makeup. Some use rakes. Others employ leaf blowers, taking care not to degrade the artificial turf.
In 1986, Mick Jagger saw the confetti at Disney and asked Artistry in Motion to make some for a Rolling Stones’ concert at Dodgers Stadium. Then, he brought the fledgling confetti company on tour. Other artists, including Bono from U2, asked that confetti be made for their shows as well.
Stadium concerts led to sporting events. The company’s first Super Bowl was in 1997, when the Green Bay Packers defeated the Patriots (pre-Brady) at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans. The year before that, Winter had been a pyrotechnician at the Super Bowl, making this year’s game his 30th.
In 2025, an estimated 127.7 million people watched the game on TV or streaming.
Winter wouldn’t admit to having a favorite team, but he did say he has two brothers who are New York Jets fans, and he has promised to bring them to the Super Bowl to work a confetti cannon if their team ever returns. Quarterback Joe Namath led the Jets to their last Super Bowl, in 1969.
