Lasers with the right building can match the largest Christmas tree

When we look at a site for the first time, we are always keeping an eye open for what buildings are in the area.

Buildings can be the most stable and reliable laser screens, and often have a historical connection with the community that adds an extra dimension to the laser show.  Plus, lasers can project very, very large, and we are looking for something to showcase that impressive ability – often the right building will add a substantial WOW factor to the laser show.  And that is something that everyone is looking for!

Long Distance Laser Viewing

Get the Laser Show Up

Often, a building will be taller than the surrounding area;  if we can use it for a projection screen, the laser show will be available for a wider audience.  If the lasers can communicate with a wider audience than the audio system will reach, consider working with a local radio station to simulcast the music for the show.  The audience can tune in on whatever receiver is in their area and enjoy the full experience.

Must Have Laser Beams!

Laser beams project out from the building

We have found that it is not enough just to project the laser graphics on to the side of a building, impressive as that might seem…. we always add an atmospherice beam display to complete the laser show!  These colorful beams of laser light dance to the music in intricately choreographed patterns, and bring the show out over the audience.  Theatrical haze machines keep the air a little foggy so that the laser beams show up.

We are looking for a flat wall.

Bring the show down the street

Buildings don’t have to be super tall to work well.  Usually, the scale of a small building is still much more in relationship to the audience, so effective images can be created on any building.  Bricks seem to disappear while watching a moving laser image, and often windows are not in the way, either.  But we are always looking for the elusive large, blank white wall to use for our laser projections!

HeyWire Text Logo

Shawn's Fiftieth party!

Pics are coming…..

Laser Spectacles took to the back woods of Apache Pass on May 29 and 30, 2011, to provide laser shows for the second Texas Nocturnal Festival presented by Insomniac Events. We had lasers at the Upside Down Room (the stage set up amongst the trees), and in the Sunken Garden (the stage across the river). We also had a big green YAG laser set up doing the Wall of Mirrors, and a big YAG laser set up shooting over the Arc Attack show.  All photos on this page were taken by Todd Rogers of Beamin Lasers!

Big beams from the Sunken Garden

Sunken Garden Laser Sweeps

The lasers in the Sunken Garden always look good. We set up two green lasers over a big bowl of an amphitheater, next to the long pedestrian suspension bridge.  This was a great area for people to sit on the lawn or on the big rocks along the back under the trees, and just chill out, relax, and watch the laser beams play with the music.

In the Upside Down Room, we had three RGB lasers shooting out over the audience and into the trees. In the darkness they looked fantastic!  There were a lot of really bright lights on this stage, but the OnStage Lighting designers were very cool about blending their lights with the lasers for some fantastic looks.

There's nothing like purple lasers....

Wide shot of the Upside Down Room

Magenta Lasers

With our fabulous wireless ethernet control set up, we could sit out in the trees behind the audience, and creat the show that we always like to see ourselves!

Sometimes we just let the colors go....

A closer look at the colors of laser

Found the gold we were searching for!

Onward to Arc Attack – one of our favorite bands from Austin, TX. They specialize in creating music using giant Tesla Coils. It turned out that one of the places we carefully selected to put a big green laser at was right next to the Arc Attack performance space! So, we got to spend some time together and appreciate one another’s work. One very unusual thing they are doing is inviting audience members to stand/dance inside a metal cage, which then attracts the arcs from the giant coils.

The Arc Attack Crazy Man

Girls in the electric cage

Electrified cage girls

The Wall of Mirrors in full flight

Finally, we had the Wall of Mirrors set up over towards the side of the entrance…. another good spot to chill.

HeyWire Logo with text below

We were contacted by HeyWire, a company from Boston that produces free world wide text messaging, to add lasers to an event they were hosting at SXSW (South by Southwest music convention) in Austin, TX. The plan was to rent out a building with a bar, throw a good party inside it (with lasers, of course!) and then project two lasers on the front of the building from an office across the street. One laser would project the HeyWire logos, and the other would be open for anyone to send text messages to – their messages would scroll across the building in laser light! People strolling down the street and lining up for other parties across the street could not help but notice the HeyWire presence.

The bar that they selected was “Friends”, in the heart of Austin’s 6th Street entertainment district, and a few doors down from the historic Driskill Hotel. DJ DNS, visiting SXSW from Amsterdam, was called upon the get the masses inside the club moving. Laser Spectacles installed two RGB laser projectors under MIDI control inside the club for this party.

HeyWire Text Logo

Laserist's View

Outdoors, the text messaging worked perfectly. Using Pangolin’s “Interactive Messaging Unlimited” SMS software, people who got the special phone number could send it a text, and their message would appear in laser. Over the four hours that the show ran, the sytem received 534 text messages!

SAAF Logo in laser

Green Laser Beams One

Laser Spectacles, Inc. had a blast at the San Antonio AIDS Foundation’s WEBB Party on April 8, 2011.  It was held at historic Sunset Station in downtown San Antonio; the theme was futuristic glam – “Supernova”; and we used lasers to bring the party into the future.  After all, it’s the 21st century, and we were promised that lasers would be all over the place, right?  At this party, the lasers were all over the place!

Color lasers looked good, too!

Lasers and the Tower

We had lasers out in the courtyard creating ever-changing beam sculptures overhead while people entered the party.  At 10 PM,  the laser really kicked off with a laser “Supernova” presentation scheduled once it got good and dark.  The specially choreographed presentation featured graphics on the tall “Alamo-like” wall of Sunset Station, and laser beams bouncing off mirrors and terminating on the  buildings around the area.

Through the door at Club Nova

Club Nova Shadow Boxes

In the club room – “Club Nova”, we had two RGB laser beam projectors working with DJ Jenntonic all night long.  And we had lumia projectors and Blisslights running inside the club room lounge to push the party over the edge.

The futuristic dance floor in the pavilion was awesome – it was very bright, and DMX controlled with seemingly unlimited patterns.

Lighted Dance Floor

Here are some pictures I took when we did quick tests of the lumia projector:

Lumia in the VIP Lounge

Blisslights on the Bar

We'll have it all....

Laser Spectacles was there with lasers blazing during the countdown and on into the first 30 minutes of 2011!  Hermes Music built a big stage with great sound and lights, and numerous bands played leading up until the countdown at midnight.

The ball getting into position

Beams down Beaumont St.

The Logo in Laser Light

We had two big green lasers on either side of the stage shooting all the way down Beaumont Street, and two big green lasers behind it to shoot out over the whole area.  A block down Beaumont Street from the stage was a fine white wall upon which we projected laser graphics.  The show lasted 30 minutes, and began with a rockin’ “Auld Lang Syne” as done by the Red Hot Chili Peppers with bagpipes!  The rest of the show used selected pop music from 2010 with upbeat, inspiring lyrics.

Laser Beams fill the air

in McAllen Texas

Abstract lasers danced

We had multiple lasers set up around “Le Ritual”, the main performance area, where we performed our lasers over a huge audience along with music from Metric, Weezer, Drake, The Street Sweeper Social Club, Ozzy Osbourne, and My Morning Jacket.  We also had lasers inside the big saddle span tent dance music area “Le Plur”, performing with Crookers, Hot Chip, The Crystal Method, and Paul Van Dyk.  The weather was absolutely perfect, with just enough wind after dark to push the laser smoke through the performance areas.

Lasers were spread...

around an area the size

of a football field!

At the “Le Plur”, an awesome array of lights, video, sound, and lasers awaited the touch of the master musicians, and the throngs of delighted dancers.  It turned out that Voodoo had not had a dance area since 2004, the last time that we had lasered at the festival (pre-Katrina).  The new “Le Plur” garnered a lot of attention because of that, and the crowds were constantly huge here.

Everyone likes red lasers

Laser X

Sliced beams

It was quite the fun show.  We used wireless ethernet to link all of our lasers at Le Ritual to the command post up in the VIP section, and it worked painlessly.  We could project laser VOODOO on to the old oak trees!  The weather was so nice no one broke a sweat during setup.  And New Orleans during Halloween weekend is like being transported to Halloween Headquarters!

VOODOO on the trees

VOODOO over Ozzy Osborne!

There were so many and varied people attending this festival, and five stages going from noon – 11 PM each day, for three full days; it is hard to imagine taking it all in. Here’s a panorama I made of the Le Ritual main performance stage area, click on it to see larger:

That’s about all we can say for now, but here are some pictures from Voodoo Experiences of the past:

Green waves over Voodoo

Free Bass Society

In the dance hall

Lasers on the columns

Lasers by the Windows

A line pattern

We had a call for using lasers to add holiday cheer to a home in Austin; the owner was trying to avoid going through the laborious process of hanging traditional lights all over his large home, and thought that lasers might provide the solution.

After some demos, tests, and trials, we settled on four laser projectors from Laserworld – two EL-200 LED projectors, and two EL-200S DMX projectors, a fog machine, and four custom weatherproof enclosures. Total cost: Approximately $2500

Protected from rain

The Laser Inside

Balanced on a rock (temporarily)

These laser projectors use green and red lasers with diffraction grating technology to produce their effects. The main effect is that of a lot of laser “dots” striking the home. The projectors come with hundreds of built in patterns; these can be selected and programmed with any standard DMX controller, or set to change by sound activation, or set to run automatically. In this case the client wanted them to run simply and inexpensively, and chose the automatic mode. They both have an additional LED ripply abstract light projection output next to the laser output. The EL-200S DMX has additionally a pair of scanners that move the entire effect and add additional pattern variation by projecting the light in tiny circles and squares and lines. There is quite a bit of laser movement and dancing in this show! The weatherproof enclosures are made of galvanized sheet metal, and can be delivered powder coated if desired.

Laser Patterns

Laser Curls

Laser Dots over the windows

Problems? Mainly, keeping in mind the parameters that you can run the laser on; in this case the specs in the manual say as low as 10° C or 50° F. Well it got quite cold one night, down to 20° F, and the green lasers failed to come on. Fortunately, they were replaced under warranty, but it’s best to keep in mind, in an installation like this, to try to keep the lasers warm. We have even installed tiny thermostatic heaters to maintain a minimum temperature inside the enclosure.

The home from afar

for the parties.... add the smoke

Lasers on the columns looked good...

All in all, I think that this was a successful installation. It was better perceived from the yard of the home, but it was a large house, set back from the street, and surrounded by a 6′ tall stone wall. My conclusion is that in a dark neighborhood, this would be spectacular, especially as one approached the house, but to be seen from far away, it is better to stick to traditional string Christmas lights, or to do something with higher power lasers.

On Sept. 4 and 5, 2010, Laser Spectacles went back to Apache Pass, TX,  to have fun with a big green laser in the sky.  The event delivered as promised – it was huge, lots of people, and first class staging and event production. The weather was fantastic, and four stages provided music by artists from around the world. There were fantastic art exhibits sprinkled around the venue like the “Fleeble Flobber”!

"Labyrinth" - Stage 1

"Queen's Grounds" - Stage 2

I took the opportunity to walk around a little the day before Nocturnal opened, and snapped some photos of everything going up and being delivered.  This event used the entire grounds of Apache Pass, and it was green from the recent rains and ready to go.  In fact, the skies opened up on Thursday night (Nocturnal did not open until Sat.) and dumped a lot of rain on the grounds, leading to hurried covering of expensive lighting instruments, and a lot of ruts as vehicles had to drive through the muddy grounds.  But everything was dry the next day, and setup proceeded unimpeded.

"Upside Down Room" - Stage 3

"Sunken Garden" - Stage 4

In the creek - Stage 4 speakers

There were four stages, each of a different design, created by Hyacinth Belcher and her crew from OnStage Productions out of Dallas.  The first was sort of a standard box or Thomas truss stage; the second was a pyramid trussing structure with the DJ booth high up inside the pyramid;  the third was a complex arrangement of trussing set between two huge old trees;  and the fourth was the existing stage at Apache Pass, with a small creek running between the audience and the stage.  At this stage, speaker scaffolds were actually built in the creek below, in order to get the sound to the audience more efficiently.

Click to see the panorama from Stage 1

I could not resist taking some panoramic shots as the place was too big to take in all at once.

Click to see the panorama from Stage 4

The big suspension walkway bridge was pretty much off limits this party, and had a long color changing LED light attached to the rail.

Click to see the panorama from Stage 3

I thought that we were at the coolest stage – Stage 3 the Upside Down Room.  This stage was what it was all about – surrounded by ancient Texas bottomland trees, cool and green – this would certainly be where the nocturnal creatures would appear.

The Camel Dome

Butterfly Bicycles

We saw a lot of neat stuff being set up – butterfly bicycles, the Fleeble Flobbler, a big white geodesic dome, and the Scooby Doo Crew had an encampment off to the side with some big speakers, and several ridable noise making vehicles.  The big white dome turned out to be a Camel cigarettes advertising piece, you could go in there and if you swore that you were a smoker, they took your driver’s license and did things in front of a camera with cute models (I am not making this up).

Fleeble Flobbler Sign

The Fleeble Flobbler

I had noticed the Fleeble Flobbler, but did not know what it was – it kind of looked like a giant “Mr. Peanut” in the distance.  Up close, I could see that it was going to burn – they had cords of firewood stacked around it ready to go.  Interesting!

The Lasers

YAG with smoke

YAG at the Entrance

YAG from far away

We had a big YAG Q-switched laser set up on a scaffolding just inside the entrance.  It was fun to hear the comments of people entering – they could see the lasers for miles as they approached the show.

RGB lasers thru the trees

Piercing the dark

We also had a couple of full color lasers at Stage 3 – Upside Down Room.  While OnStage had set up a ton of super bright lights, the lasers in and amongst the trees added just the right touch to make this stage the dark nocturnal wonderland that we all hoped that we would find at this show.

Lasers filled the Air

What birthday parties has Laser Spectacles done?

Required laser message...

One that would be and example of the $500 show, would be the one that I did for my godson Windsor last year. We used a 500 mW graphics projector, and a 500 mW beam projector (with special deep purple color) I prepared a list of showcase pieces that we could perform beforehand, set up a sound system, and we had a blast!

More smoke, Windsor!

I forgot to mention the fog machine – one of the best parts of the show, and necessary to see the laser beams! It was a little bit windy that evening, so the wind tended to blow the smoke out through and beyond the laser beams. We had to push the smoke button a lot to keep the show looking good! Kids love smoke machines, and it is a great honor for the birthday boy to control the button for the laser show.

Laser Happy Birthday

Birthday Laser Pic

Another unique birthday party that we did was a surprise laser and fireworks show on the Lexington aircraft carrier in Corpus Christi, TX. The ship is available for special events, and our client rented out the whole second deck for the party, celebrating the 85th birthday of a local man. We used two green lasers for this show; it was a bit of work the night before to get everything set up. These pictures were taken from the command control center in the balcony – only authorized personnel allowed! You can see the audience sitting on the floor below in front of the stage. We were able to project directly onto the huge American flag behind the stage.

One of the nicest birthday parties that we have done was for the 50th celebration for Shawn Ash, a native San Martian and member of the locally revered Ash Brothers Band. He set up a big stage for his party at the bottom of a long hill in his backyard, and we were able to set two lasers on either side of the stage to perform with the band’s music, and another laser on his patio projecting graphics onto the wall of his house. It was a great backyard laser show! Click here to see our post about Shawn Ash’s birthday party.

Remember it's his fiftieth

Lasers in the backyard

Ash Brothers Laser Show