Outdoor Show

[carlos3621]

Hey carlos-

I agree with you 50% and i agree with the other side 50%. i know, leave it to me to be a neutral party.

i think we are all forgetting the fact that the atmosphere and particualr weather for that day will make the biggest differences in the world!!! Also, whatr type of effects are we talking about with "visibility"?

My very first laser show ever, was believe it or not, for Creedance Clearwater. It was in Indian Ledge Park in trumbll CT. I was set up to the right of the stage with a 2.5W/532 (Melles) which anyone who owns a melles knows that the second you start blanking them, they drop to about 2W or less. This show landed me 3 more shows with the band. Got me a town of Trumbull Laser job EVERY year since and when the laser first fired for the first time, it got more of a "roar" from the crowd than i think the band did.

NOW- a few things about this show...

1- yes, it was outdoors. with (IRC) ~8,000 people. but the way the park was laid out helped keep fog and ambient "atmospehieric pollution" contained.

2- this was a show in mid august. where the humidity was just obnoxiously high. therefore the haze in the air was perfect.

3- all of my beam effects were kept relatively slow moving and kept to a bare minimum of points. YES, the second i tried a "liquid sky" the visibility was next to nothing. this is where the programming needs to be planned accordingly for a show. the lighting operator was a great guy also and we had a blast working together. He helped the laser part immensley.

the biggest thing i think we need to realize is that technically, both of you are correct. Of course to do an outside show the most power available is by far the best choice. but if you can get your hands on a 3W-5W green for an outdoor show, and you can plan it accordingly and the environemt cooperates with you, you can put on a damn good show! would 10 Watts, 20 Watts or 40 watts be better?? hell yes. of course. but not all of us are in that boat. we have to make due with what is available.

Of course there are limits with this. You cant get away with a superbowl type of laser show with a few 3W or 5W lasers. that just aint gonna cut it.

its pretty basic. you need stuff in the air to see a laser. you can have a "prodjallen" 1,000 watt 532 and do a show with it. if theres nothing good in the air to scatter the light, you aint gonna see it. or you can have a 1W 532 get a great lucky day with super humid and hazey weather with relatively little to no wind and that 1 watt could look like a 20 watt.

Like i said previously, remember something...many outdoor laser shows years back were done with 15-20W of Argon. well, 15-20W of Argon *is* 5-7W of yag!!!

-Marc

Marc, your correct!, its all about the atmoshpheric condiitons! , im jsss sayin, down here in SOCAL, we rarely have "IDEAL" conditions.
we usually have clear skies at nite, and lots of ambient lighting at nite....

[-bart-]

...will tell you that there is no substitute for raw power...

How about economics ?
Doubling your hazing-power is cheaper than doubling your lasing-power.
(European argument; and more eye-safe too)

[buffo]

In the US, eye safety isn't an issue because it's next to impossible to get a variance that allows you to crowd-scan. So the beams are never going into the audience anyway.

True it's cheaper to buy a heavy-duty fogger than it is to buy a more powerful laser. But in an outdoor venue, you can't always count on the fog sticking around - even with large fans.

I guess it all boils down to how comfortable you are with your ability to control the wind, and how much ambient light you have to deal with. But if I were in the business, I wouldn't stake my company's reputation on something as fickle as the wind. I'd want to be sure I had enough power to do the job even if I couldn't control the fog.

Adam

[ImagineThat]

Wow, I ahven't been here for a week and had lots of responses to read. Thanks for the advice for all that gave it. I also have learned more about DJ software and how they can fake their work than I thought...

To add some more details of the particular gig we're looking at, it's a music festival at a ranch in semi-rural lower Michigan in July, so the atmospheric conditions looks to be in our favor (humidity, low ambient light). We would also be the LD for our night, so even with hired help at the light desk we could control the intells and stage lighting. Man do I hate when there's a clueless light guy that's turned around talking to his buddies the whole time, not watching the show. We just had a show where the same spastic light effect went for 4 songs straight without any dimming between songs or anything...

Our intent with getting a new 532 nm source would be to build a beam table for static effects - no scanning. Using a PBS or something to combine beams could be done easy that way too. A few diffraction gratings and beams with lots of mirrors around the venue is what we're going for.

The event is in the planing stages and there may be some type of tenting. Although that sounds encouraging, I just hope there would be enought space between the crowd and roof, since we're stuck going above people's heads in the U.S. unless you're Roger Waters.

Here's an indoor show we just did a week ago. 2x 370mW RGB scanners, 1 1W RGB scanner, 2x500mW red static, 2x 1W green static (not on in the pic). I was able to take video in the projector booth, so the camera's vantage was right in the middle of the outside scanners!

[mixedgas]

5 watts in july with a beam table? Why didn't you say so? That would work just fine!
duck and cover... duck and cover...


Steve

[QUAZAR]

LOL! , well down here in Netherlands, we use synchronized smoke bombs strategically placed around the crowd

I would have thought that over there, most of the crowd would be busy generating their own smoke clouds.

[QUAZAR]

Just a thought, this is 5W argon outdoors. Laser is an SP2011, the field is surrounded by 50 foot trees on all sides. We had a tarp that came out 20' from the front of the stage and was suspended to the trees at the sides. We used a ZR20 and an F100 smoke generators for this gig and there were over 1000 people present.

[dsli_jon]

Hey Imagine -

A few diffraction gratings and beams with lots of mirrors around the venue is what we're going for.

Welcome to PL, and, re: ^^ ... glad to see another 'old skooler' here... - I, personally, am not so much a fan of the 'new school' approach of 'just add more projectors' vs 1-2 butt-kicking-power lasers and a good beam table / mirrors... yeah, it's 'more work', but it pays-off, IMO....



Given the right conditions (and thanks / kudos to Marc and Adam, who posted the *correct* answer to the 'is 5W outdoors enough': it's all-about 'ambient atmosphere' (humidity-levels), ambient-lighting is even secondary to-that) yes, a pair of 5Ws can be 'enough'... that said, the best piece of 'road-wisdom' posted so-far was:

...there is no substitute for raw power...show up with enough power to handle the gig without much fog...

..buy as much power as you can possibly afford... 5W of green, especially in the 'format' you plan to use it, should cover you for many outdoor gigs, May/June thru Aug/early Sept, under 3K people....but a KTP-sys beam table/mirrors and/or with 2-3x 10W fiber-fed remotes is hard to beat, and would 'cover you' if you land a gig with a 3-5K+ crowd...

the fact that the atmosphere and particualr weather for that day will make the biggest differences in the world!!!

~600mW one August (IIRC), long-ago....no fog, you can see the 'ambient lighting' for yourself... but in 'January', you'd never see anything like this...
Here's another example:

...'outdoor advertising' show in November... fairly-high ambient lighting... do you see the 30+W beams coming from the green-system? Thought-not... yet this shot:

... in July (and the fireworks-smoke was really not 'in' this area)... and, scanned, at-that, I think makes the point quite clear...

True it's cheaper to buy a heavy-duty fogger than it is to buy a more powerful laser. But in an outdoor venue, you can't always count on the fog sticking around - even with large fans.

I wouldn't stake my company's reputation on something as fickle as the wind. I'd want to be sure I had enough power to do the job even if I couldn't control the fog.

...Yeeup.

Companies still using 20-40W YAG's are the companies that don't have the money to invest in more safe, modern laser devices.

Oh, reeealy? Well, I love OPSL, too, but lemme see 5W OPSLs doing this:


...or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEDmZPx-FMg ..@~ 1:19+...

...and even at times, here, these 30W+ beams looked a little thin... even with all the fog, etc...Sorry, but '2-5W of OPSL' in such a setting, would have gotten a Laser sho Co. fired / not-paid, to say the very least...

...there is no substitute for raw power...

A-men. Welcome to PL...
peace...
j

[QUAZAR]

For outdoor work, I would also seriously consider a CuBr laser.
As you arent audience scanning or doing complex graphics, the 8Kw pulses would work in your favour.

[EmLaSys]

Hello

I´ve made a little lasershow with my 1.5W RGB outdoor.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIpDSJYtjm8

Place was 30meters long, filming-distance approx 15meters.
Only very little light of a street lamp on the end of the place.
In real it was a little bit brighter then in the video.

But you can see: No fog, no laser.

We´ve got only a 1500W Stairville fog machine without a fan.
The wind was very low.

There was no "big" show, but is was OK. Also from 30meters distance.
Next time a hazebase-hazer and a fan for the fog machine and it´s better.

But I think this bigness of the place and the lighting situation is the maximum for 1.5W RGB.

Ron