How Beyoncé's 2013 Super Bowl Set Reset the Halftime Show

By Grace Kim

Beyoncé took the stage at Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans in 2013 and delivered a career-spanning halftime performance that, in hindsight, didn't even scratch the surface of how her artistry would unfold over the decade that followed. That's the striking part. The set that once looked like a peak now reads like a warm-up — and it changed what a halftime headliner is expected to do.

What did the 2013 setlist actually include?

The performance opened with "Run the World (Girls)," followed by "Love on Top" and "Crazy in Love." Jay-Z didn't join her for their collaboration. A source reportedly told US Weekly at the time that the rapper "wanted that to be her moment and didn't want to take away from it."

Beyoncé then split roughly a third of her stage time with Destiny's Child. Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams joined for "Bootylicious" and "Independent Women Part I," and stayed on for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)." The rest of the setlist ran through "End of Time," "Baby Boy" and "Halo," which closed the show.

That reunion structure — solo star pauses her own showcase to elevate her origins — became a template. It's the mechanism behind the performance's influence: the halftime show stopped being a singles medley and became a curated argument about an entire career.

What's changed since, on record and on the field?

Beyoncé now has five albums' worth of material beyond that night. The surprise self-titled album Beyoncé arrived in the dead of night on a random Friday in December 2013 — ten months after the halftime show — and flipped release conventions so hard that barely anyone bothers dropping albums on Tuesday anymore. She followed it with Lemonade, a true testament to her cultural dominance.

Her joint discography with Jay-Z has grown too: the classic single "Drunk in Love," the full-length project Everything Is Love, and most recently the "Morning Dew (Donk)" remix, which features the rapper's first new verse in nearly half a decade.

The Super Bowl kept serving as her staging ground. In 2016, she made a surprise appearance during Coldplay's headlining set at Super Bowl 50, storming the field with "Formation" — a single she had released less than 24 hours earlier — with militant precision and an army of dancers. The moment drew nearly 50 pages of FCC complaints. These days, that's how you know you're doing something right.

This decade she launched a three-act album series: the revitalizing dance album Renaissance, then Cowboy Carter, her take on country. Cowboy Carter got its own halftime spotlight when she headlined the 2024 NFL Christmas Gameday halftime show, fittingly branded as the Beyoncé Bowl. Her guests included Blue Ivy, Shaboozey and Post Malone, and the setlist nodded to the close of the Renaissance era with "My House."

What does this change for the halftime show itself?

Production of the Super Bowl halftime show has run in partnership with Jay-Z's Roc Nation since 2019, and the 2020s lineup shows the resulting standard: Shakira and Jennifer Lopez; the Weeknd; Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar; Rihanna; Usher; Lamar solo; and Bad Bunny, who made history as the first Latin artist to deliver a halftime performance primarily in Spanish.

The pattern is clear. After Beyoncé raised the bar in 2013 and again in 2016, the slot became a prestige platform for full-career statements, surprise releases and cultural provocation — not just a greatest-hits pit stop.

Next year the spotlight cycles back to the family. Jay-Z will headline the Super Bowl LXI halftime show, set for Feb. 14, 2027, at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles — the collaborator who once stepped aside for her moment finally taking the stage as the headliner.