Planetarium Laser shows can't be found

while i do mostly canned abstract shows, my shows at least have randomized elements so there is some variation over repeated viewing. having some hooks for operator control during the shows sounds like fun and is something i'd like to explore in the future.

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Originally Posted by absolom7691

Exactly. If your canned show is not holding your audience, there is very that can be done. I would also think most laserists would find it a blast to perform a live show and if something went awry, not to fear, the autopilot will bring the stick back to center. It would have to be more fun than just clicking start.

Most of the shows I am working on in Beyond are canned/timeline based but a good portion of those pre-assembled abstract "frames" have live attributes applied and mapped to my midi console. FM, AM, and color mods can be manipulated live and change the image drastically while still within the harmonic bliss zone. Most of the modern canned abstract shows look decent enough but they would be way more unique if the laserist could make live changes. Outside of Laserium, I think if have only seen Blue Fang do live changes with his Maxwell synth software and he was just screwing around to show proof of concept. It looked great though.

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Originally Posted by absolom7691

But even a canned show with live nuances and alterations is far better than someone pressing play and then going to grab a beer until the next show needs to be queued up.

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What kind of live nuances are you talking about and why can't you add them as part of the canned show?

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Originally Posted by swamidog

while i do mostly canned abstract shows, my shows at least have randomized elements so there is some variation over repeated viewing.

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Don't get me wrong, of the canned abstract shows I have seen on PL, yours are best.

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having some hooks for operator control during the shows sounds like fun and is something i'd like to explore in the future.

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It is a lot of fun and knowing your work, I am sure your stuff would fantastic.

If selling shows to other laser guys, you can only sell canned shows but if you put together a great canned show with live elements, it will be different each time. It can change based on mood, the audience input and even the imperfections in us that change the way we repeat things. This is why people love live music. We listen to the same tracks over and over because we love them but when we see them performed live, it is a whole different experience. Watching David Gilmour's ear-to-ear grin during the Pulse concert was priceless. Seeing them live was truly an amazing experience. Who would go to see a band and watch them pop a cd in and press play? That sounds like fun for no one.

People like live music because they get to see the performers and interact with them. No one wants to interact or see the guys twiddling the knobs at a laser show.

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Originally Posted by JohnYayas

People like live music because they get to see the performers and interact with them. No one wants to interact or see the guys twiddling the knobs at a laser show.

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Actually there are any number of reasons people like live music. There's a magnificent old Fox Theater here in St. Louis and your reason for going to see live music there is particularly appropriate - since the acoustics are awful. Around the block is The Shelden where you go to listen to the music. The advantage to live is you get to experience it differently. There can be an awesome energy coming from the rest of the audience. If you're the right kind of performer you can learn things from the audience too.

I'm an ol' fart, from near the beginning days of planetarium laser shows and hope I'm not intruding into this conversation.

I started out in 1974, in my mid-20's taking astronomy at a local junior college. This 40' planetarium had a very creative director/astronomy professor, along with a very talented photographer special effects tech. I joined the team the following year having been a recording engineer, theater projectionist and electronics tech. To me what made the planetarium experience great was directly proportional to the talent that "performed" visual and aural "dark theater" effects while blending in the 3D virtual astronomical visuals. The director was aware of Laserium long before I was since it was a phenomena spreading throughout more and more planetariums by the mid-70's. The planetarium had just gotten a .5mW HeNeIt and the directory asked me to figure out how Ivan Dryer did those effects. That's how I got my start.

My key point is this. Dark theater is a technical art form that when drawing from an eclectic range of dark theater effects (including judicious uses of the planetarium star ball and other optical effects) can produce a transcending experience. Lasers in and of themselves are very cool indeed, and today have tremendously more versatility. I spent years developing computer controlled, multi-channel, programmable DAC boards, but my personal experience seemed to support a greater value was delivered to the audience when a core scripted show left room for real-time, manual augmentation based on audience feedback.

In '77, I went to Europe, London was our first stop. There was a laser show all the rage playing at the Metropole Cinema called "Lovelight", it premiered at the Hayden Planetarium in Boston. The creator was I believe Jean Monagu (general scanning) and a very talented group of others. It was an early computer generated, scripted animation using multi-colored, closed-loop scanners, multi-track FM modulation tape, a very grand production. The visuals were very impressive but the show "experience" left me underwhelmed and disappointed (all while wondering "how the hell did they do that"). I still have the London magazine "What's On In London" with laser show's visuals on the front cover and the lead story somewhere. (I found the London mag since I first posted and re-edited this.)

Live music shows with or without lasers, in effect bear out this blend of quasi-scripted/spontaneous performance formula for making it such a higher level audience experience, to me at least.

Cheers

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Originally Posted by Laserchuck

A lot of things changed at the same time, the marketing models changed but the marketing didn't adapt. The shows, technology, staffing, responsibilities, style and complexity, music choices and more. Yes, we can argue all day long about who made the best buggy whips back in the day. But there are people actively employed in the field, selling equipment and shows. There are planetariums running these shows. If the audience isn't satisfied, they won't come back or bring their friends. In fact, the online culture of our times seems to thrive on people bitching more than actually contributing. So the likely hood of a cynical comment between friends is even greater than promoting something as cool. So if the show isn't worth seeing again or bringing friends, the attendance goes down and eventually not worth the facility having. Marketing is hard, but when they (typically) don't do any, it's even harder to keep an operation going.

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we actually had great attendance, problem is museum didn't really like it and the people in charge are so grossly incompetent it's kind of mind blowing... now due to mismanagement they closed the old museum over a year ago and the new one isn't ready yet

as far as music choices, we often made shows for music that was popular but interest would die off quickly... the floyd/beatles/etc shows usually sold out...

we did aggressively promote on facebook/craigslist/yelp/meetup/etc, basically anything that could be done for free

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Originally Posted by flecom

the floyd/beatles/etc shows usually sold out...

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How often did you run these? Just curious.

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Originally Posted by flecom

we actually had great attendance, problem is museum didn't really like it and the people in charge are so grossly incompetent it's kind of mind blowing... now due to mismanagement they closed the old museum over a year ago and the new one isn't ready yet

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Incompetence in these types of facilities abounds. The definition of success varies so greatly across the organizations, and the great divide between administration and front line is often huge, so it's really a surprise when something goes right. The phrase "It's hard to tell from this distance if the board is sitting on their hands or frantically trying to cover their assess." comes up quite a bit.

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Originally Posted by flecom

as far as music choices, we often made shows for music that was popular but interest would die off quickly... the floyd/beatles/etc shows usually sold out...

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The band's with with a huge following have have a fan base and there is often a history of knowing there are laser shows for them. Any time I mention laser shows to someone new, they often say "oh like Pink Floyd?" One planetarium ran an ad that was easily misinterpreted to think that U2 would be playing there. The people came to droves. And we're subsequently disappointed.

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Originally Posted by flecom

we did aggressively promote on facebook/craigslist/yelp/meetup/etc, basically anything that could be done for free

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Quite likely, even if you bring in more money, they wouldn't let you have access to it to use it for more advertising...to bring in even more money. I try to tell these people that Non-profit is Isa tax status, not a mandate.

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Originally Posted by JohnYayas

How often did you run these? Just curious.

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they ran first friday of the month usually, sometimes we would do friday and sautrday (like end of the year during winter break)

last schedule is actually still up

http://bird.miamisci.org/www/planeta...aser_shows.php