Laser shows at festivals - the festival season is hot!

Mud, drunken people, tents, dirt, smell, long-haired guys and short skirt - festival season is upcoming!
A festival is the perfect place for implementing spectacular live laser show performances. However, only few organizers already rely on such extraordinary effects. Of course more and more festivals now use lasers as central special effect, however there are many that still don't. Why? Maybe the organizers have never experienced it before or even don't know of the possibilities.
Lasers shows perfectly fit metal music, hip hop, electronic beats etc. - any kind of music can be accompaigned with lasers. It's just a matter of professional laser operation.
Laser shows for festivals became more and more affordable over the past years - so it's just a matter of finding a professional laser show company for implementing a spectacular laser show at the festival.

Just to give you some examples of laser show professionals:

Ray Technologies (http://www.raytechnologies.com) - mainly focussed on High end, timeline laser shows
Laserworld (http://www.laserworld.com) - they have some really skilled live laser show operators, that already played lasers with sets of the very big DJs
Lasertainment (http://www.lasertainment.com) - they only serve the USA, but have long year experience in any kind of laser show

Is a laser show better than fireworks?

That depends of course - especially on the spectators. But of course: if you can have both, it's the best solution you can have :-) The smoke from the pyrotechnical effects helps make the beams of the laser show even better visible!

in fact, fireworks are well know, everybiody has seen them and they are a common solution at many festivities. However, fireworks may become boring if seen too often.  sometimes people like to become surprised, to experience the unexpected. So adding lasers to a fireworks show is a great idea.
If an established, yearly fireworks show shall be substituted by a laser show, it is essential to find a super professional laser show company (e.g. look at Laserworld) to implement it. Small companies with only weak laser systems are very likely to mess up the show, as they cannot provide the visual impact tthe spectators are used to from the fireworks show.

So always remember to hire professional, experienced companies if it comes to important shows. Otherwise you, your customers and the spectators will be disappointed.

And yes, a laser show can be more spectacular than fireworks - if it's professionally done.

Laser shows in the United States

Doing laser shows in the United States is quite a challenge: Not only are there a lot of restrictions and legal uncertainties, but there is also a massive requirement on filling in paperwork prior to being allowed to do any show. This makes it hard to bring up a laser show at all. That's why it amkes perfect sense to rely on laser show professionals for doing laser show in the USA.
Some very experienced laser show people work at Lasertainment (http://www.lasertainment.com), a company that was established about 30 years ago and specialized in doing all types of laser shows.
They recently put up some massive show for the Bingo Players in New York City ... check out the video:

Laser show control - ILDA or Network/LAN?

The market for laser show control solutions is basically shared between the two protagonists Pangolin  and Phoenix Showcontroller - but wait: they both belong to Pangolin Systems since beginning of 2013, so both solution from one provider.
Ok, both software types offer more or less similar features but their handling is slightly different. Both software solutions offer hardware to convert the digital computer signal to the analogue ILDA signal (standard low-level transfer protocol for laser show control; runs over a 25 pin parallel cable). But there are two main types of solution:
The USB interface has a rather short USB cable to the interface (so called DAC - Digital Analogue Converter), and then runs a long ILDA cable to the laser show system.
the second option is to run a long network cable to the DAC (or a LAN switch to distribute the signal, and then on to the interface), and then a short ILDA cable from the Network interface to the laser, e.g. 1 m.

The Network interfaces are rather nwe solutions. As they use the TCP/IP protocoll, they are compatible with all normal CAT%/6 cables and normal switches - so the conmtrol signal distribution is extremely easy.
especially in situations where it's necessary to run long cables from the FoH (Front of House) to the stage it's extremely comfortable to use network signal transmission.

Laserworld released a brand new LAN interface for Phoenix LIVE, Phoenix PRO and Phoenix PRO+, that has great output quality and is very easy to handle.

This kind of laser show control will make many shows much easier!

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