Super Bowl DJ Tiësto Talks Spinning the Big Game: ’200 Million People Watching? Yeah, That’s a Bit of Pressure’

As one of the most popular resident DJs in Las Vegas, Tiësto already has a packed schedule. But he’ll be squeezing in another set just a few hours after his regular one at the LIV Nightclub ends at around 4:30 a.m. on Sunday morning — a gig at Allegiant Stadium to perform as the pre- and in-game DJ at Super Bowl LVIII.

The Grammy-winning DJ/producer spends 40 weekends out of the year in Las Vegas nightclubs, has headlined countless festivals and played to hundreds of thousands of fans. But Super Bowl LVIII presents a staggering number of viewers.

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“Two hundred million people watching? Yeah, that’s a bit of pressure,” he admits. “But I’m more excited than anything else. A lot of people who have never heard of Tiësto will know about me.”

This is the fifth year DJs have playing during the Super Bowl pregame during players’ warmups, beginning with DJ Khaled in Miami and continuing with D-Nice in Tampa Bay, Zedd in Los Angeles and DJ Snake in Phoenix. But this year will be the first time a DJ has played the full game. Tiësto will DJ during featured breaks within the game, some of which will be televised on CBS as well as livestreamed on Tiësto’s social channels.

“I’m lucky that a lot of sports teams and stadiums already use my music during games,” he says. “It’s not that far off for me to get a set together. In between quarters is not that long, so I have to mix really fast, four or five songs in that period, and keep the stadium on their toes.”

As for the music he’s cueing up, Tiësto is leaning into the Beastie Boys’ “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party),” which has become Kansas City Chiefs’ tight end and Taylor Swift’s beau, Travis Kelce’s theme song.

“I’ll use the tempo of that song in a track angled toward the Super Bowl, but still doing my own thing,” he says. “I might have to do something with Taylor Swift as well.”

Over the course of his three decades-plus career, the Netherlands-born Tiesto has maintained a top position within electronic dance music. Since joining the Atlantic Records roster in 2020, he has leveled up with high profile collaborations, among them, Karol G. Tate McRae, Ava Max and Ty Dolla $ign, as well Tears for Fears and Heidi Klum. Tiësto’s remix of “The White Lotus” theme song, “Renaissance” is the only official one of the popular series. But the Super Bowl represents a completely different kind of creative challenge.

“It’s a different set up than I normally play — I don’t even know exactly where I will be in the stadium [yet],” he says. “Also, the acoustics of the stadium are very different. It’s going to be a little bit harder to mix records. But those challenges I will figure out the day before, when we do rehearsals.”

As far as which team he’s rooting for, Tiësto, who is “married into the Broncos” (his wife is a Denver native) says, “The 49ers’ Christian MacCaffrey is a Colorado native so a lot of people in Colorado are rooting for him. Everybody’s hoping for the Niners because the Chiefs already won two times in the last four years. But I don’t have a favorite.”

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