As I fall deeper and deeper down the edm rabbit hole, I’ve become entranced by the laser light shows that often accompany performances and sets. Lasers are the staple of an edm show. Edm without lasers is a Lamborghini equipped with bike wheels. Sad and pathetic and weird. But edm with lasers? Show-stopping, breathtaking, legendary.
Here's a few things I’ve learned after becoming a little bit obsessive about stage lighting and lasers in the past few days:
First, this is one of my favorite laser shows to get us in the right headspace
1. Lasers are expensive
When an artist or DJ goes on a tour or plays a show, they bring along their equipment with them. At least, if they’re a big enough name. Smaller artists usually rely on the equipment a venue already has in order to do their sets. When I worked as a stagehand last summer, I saw what goes into creating a stage and set for an artist. To put it simply, it’s a lot. I worked at the Moody center and the productions they were setting up were huge and elaborate.
Lighting was one of the systems that had to be set up before the show. How this worked was a truck would be unloaded with boxes full of lighting equipment (beams, trusses, cables, etc). Our job was to follow the roadie’s instructions on how to assemble these pieces into the final product. The whole process was like putting together a really advanced and expensive IKEA bed frame. So anyways, the shows that I worked on only had beam lighting. Beam lighting is the typical lighting you see at shows. They’re very safe, attached to a swiveling head, and very mobile, but kind of unspecific with their lighting capability. Of course, with the use of fog machines beam lighting is more specific but not nearly as crisp and satisfying as real lasers.
Ok. So to get to the point. One beam light is less than 5K. Which sounds stupidly expensive. It is. But one laser box can be easily worth more than 20K. This basically means that in order to have elaborate lighting shows, it’s much cheaper and easier to just use a bunch of beam lights. But where’s the fun in that? While one laser box has the capability to produce multiple lasers, using multiple laser boxes will of course be much more dramatic. To put things into perspective, a fancy edm festival might have 20 laser boxes for one stage’s lighting setup. That’s pretty expensive.
Excision is known for the lasers at his shows. Music's just ok IMO
2. Lasers are complicated
In order to design a laser show, you have to use specialized software to program what happens when. This software is super cool, it gives you so many options on how to maneuver your lasers, what color, if they flash, how many laser beams you want and so on. The possibilities are endless. That being said, it’s kind of like learning photoshop. There’s so many options on how to create a show it can be overwhelming. Also, the software and programs used to create these shows are rented out. So a subscription to use the software comes in around $100 a month, which isn’t a lot of money in the laser world comparatively. But still.
The cool thing about programming a show on the computer is you can do test runs without actually using real lasers. Like simulated light shows. That way, even if you don’t own any laser boxes yourself, you can still play with the possibilities.
A cool example of a simulated laser show
3. Lasers are dangerous
Lasers are very dangerous. They can blind you, cause harm to cameras and other equipment, and must be treated very carefully. There’s a lot of legal guidelines that come with operating lasers. For example, lasers cannot be within 5 feet of any possible human activity. Basically, if you’re putting on a laser show at a concert. Your lasers need to be pointed higher than a tall person’s raised hand could reach if they were jumping up and down. If your venue has chairs or tables, that adds another level of complexity as you must account for it someone where to get on top of those. Basically, when operating lasers you must anchor them high up and point them upwards. This is another reason why lasers are not as common in 'regular' concert settings.
In addition to this, in order to operate lasers you must have a laser license provided by the FDA after completing a training and safety course every year. Seriously, lasers are no joke.
another one:)
4. Lasers are really f-ing cool
I think the thing that draws me to lasers the most is their versatility. There's so much creativity that goes into a cool laser show. From the positioning, to the timing, to the colors and the quantity of lasers. There's so much. I love how they emphasize the sound and bass of edm. It's so satisfying. One of my favorite examples of how diverse laser show is on reddit (boooooo) but I haven't found anything else like it. It's a show of just lasers, no other types of lights, and it's so inspiring. Here's the link:
And to end things on an embedded youtube video, here is an example of an amazing light show set up: