Key Takeaways
• A Massachusetts print company, Seaman Paper Co., has quietly supplied Super Bowl confetti for nearly 30 years, making a small but meaningful contribution to one of the NFL’s most iconic moments.
• Confetti for events like the Super Bowl requires treated, flame-resistant, custom-cut paper (even shaped like the Lombardi Trophy), yet it’s a relatively minor job compared to Seaman’s much larger clients like major concert tours and theme parks.
When the confetti falls, emotions are polarized.
For one team, it might be the moment where it finally sinks in: You won the Super Bowl, and now your team’s colors are literally raining down as you celebrate on the field.
For the other team, now coated in their opposition’s colors as they replay the preceding moments in their heads, it’s not so fun.
But the confetti is part of the Super Bowl tradition. And one print facility in Massachusetts is behind it. You can understand that they have an especially large emotional stake in things this year, as the Patriots face off against the Seattle Seahawks.
Seaman Paper Co., a printing facility in Gardner, MA, has been supplying the 20-inch by 30-inch rolls of paper to be cut into confetti for almost three decades, according to the Gardner News.
And, yes, having seen red and blue confetti so many times during the Patriots dynasty years was fun for the Seaman team.
“For us, being Patriots fans for so long, we know the confetti has been part of the Super Bowl for a long time,” Seaman Paper Co-owner James Jones told the Gardner News. “We’re very happy to be a part of this.”
Seaman Paper Co. also counts other big names among its buyers for confetti, like Taylor Swift’s Eras tour and Disney theme parks.
So, what exactly goes into the printing process of this sort of job?
Special Treatments
Jones told the Gardner News that the paper used for confetti is treated to be fade- and bleed-resistant, and then coated with a flame-resistant material at Seaman’s sister company Dennecrepe located nearby. The flame resistance is for factors like any pyrotechnics that might be used in a stage production, or the potential that the paper lands on lights on a stage or in a stadium.
Some manufacturers of confetti paper, especially where it might be used outside, have taken to using biodegradable paper that dissolves in water to eliminate wastefulness after the event is over, whether it’s a sporting event, concert, wedding or gender-reveal party in the backyard.
And it’s not simply cutting the paper into strips anymore for companies like Seaman that manufacture the confetti for big-name events. Within the last few years, the NFL has gone the extra mile and ordered its confetti cut into the shape of the Lombardi Trophy.
The funny part is that for many companies in print and promo, the biggest sporting event in the U.S. would be the highlight on the business calendar. But, with it being simply one night compared to the Eras tour or Disney theme park events, the Super Bowl job is relatively small potatoes – only a 250-pound job for a company that manufactures more than 200,000 pounds of paper daily.
With the Pats back in the Super Bowl, though, the Seaman team did at least admit that it’s “pretty cool.”
