Celebrities and football fans gathered at SoFi Stadium's open-air venue the Canyons for the NFL Honors after-party, featuring a performance by Grammy winner Usher.
Smoke machines competed with the unseasonably warm night air on Thursday at the Canyons, an open-air venue at SoFi Stadium where DirecTV’s Chairman’s Party, the official after-party of the NFL Honors, was held.
The Canyons, a massive portico attached to the stadium, was a fitting location for the celebration attended by upward of 400 people. Just before 10 p.m., Grammy winner Usher took the stage to perform a tight, eight-song set of classic hits — including “Caught Up,” “You Don’t Have to Call,” “U Make Me Wanna,” “OMG,” “My Boo” and “Yeah!” — that the crowd went crazy for.
Bobby Jones, an alum of the NFL Yet College Prep Academy, hit the party after attending an NFL Honors event earlier in the day. “This morning at the press conference for the legacy program they honored my brother Mark and me and gave us free Super Bowl tickets to the awards show tonight” and helped get him into the invite-only event, which boasted a three-hour waitlist by the time it kicked off at 8 p.m.
Work colleagues Matilda Maugh, 25, and Juliana Zettel, 29, would not call themselves football fans but are excited to see the Rams play in their home stadium on Sunday. Zettel recently bought her first home in Inglewood just two miles from the stadium, “so this is pretty cool,” she said.