If you’re local to Louisville, Kentucky’s largest city, you may have heard about the “Holiday Laser Dome”. The recent attraction has been blowing up all around the state, on local news networks, and various news outlets on the internet, such as XPLouisville. But what is the Holiday Laser Dome?
The Holiday Laser Dome was created by the company Lapis Laser Display, a local laser display company in Louisville. We had the chance to talk with Garrett Crabtree, Co-Owner of Lapis Laser Display, and find out what originally sparked his interest in laser display technology, as well as the reasoning behind the creation of the Laser Dome.
Lapis Laser Display, Garrett Crabtree
“I’ve been a DJ in nightclubs for over 10+ years, and I have always enjoyed having control of the atmosphere, in regard to the lights, and sound. Growing tired of the typical “auto-mode” lighting that small clubs always like to use, I went out and purchased some DMX lights and started figuring out how to use them.
Though I cannot recall the reason I originally wanted to add lasers to the mix, I decided to buy some cheap DMX controlled lasers on Ebay, and that’s how it all evolved. My business partner, Ryan Daly, was working on a job for a haunted house, and was asked if he knew anyone that worked with lasers, and since we we’re mutual friends, he ended up contacting me.
I took one of the cheap lasers over, projected it onto the haunted house, and from there, it was just meant to be. They ended up liking it so much, that they wanted to have us created a Christmas themed laser show at the facility.
Since they are a pretty big company, they had a sizable budget, so I set out to find everything I could about a professional laser system. Just through searching the web I found Pangolin, and fortunately my first contact I had was Justin Perry, who pushed me towards KVANT lasers and BEYOND software.
After seeing the quality of the laser systems, and how amazing the prices were, we just couldn’t go with anything else. The owner from the Haunted house purchased 8 ClubMAX 3000’s, basically giving them to me to play with. To make a long story short, we had a crash course in BEYOND, learning so much about laser functionality, and it all turned out to be a great laser show.”
The Idea Behind The Laser Dome
“Ryan was looking around online and came across video mapped “dome” shows, and some at festivals, and we both decided that we really wanted to create a 360 dome with lasers. We wanted to break out, and put on our own Christmas theme laser show, where we could have total control of the environment.
It all seemed like great idea that we could incorporate both graphics, and beams, so we looked online, found a gently used 36’ geodesic dome, purchased it and pretty much went from there.”
Why Lasers Over A Standard Lighting Fixture?
“Lasers are so much more versatile than a traditional stage lighting fixture. You can manipulate lasers in a such a variety of ways, and there are infinite possibilities, and looks that can be achieved. While most stage lights are specific purposes.
We also incorporated a lot of LED Pixel lighting in the “Holiday Village”, around the dome. Including an 18’ pixel tree, so we definitely like the mix the world of lighting with lasers as well."
Were Pangolin & KVANT Products An Aid To Your Success?
“Without a doubt! We are using a six projector, all FB4 set up, and we have ran over 200 flawless laser shows so far. I have only had to do minor adjustments in things such as zone corrections, but with BEYOND, it’s extremely easy. I just power everything on, and press play on the timeline show, and everything just works.
The FB4 systems have made the biggest difference, especially when working with a multi-projector laser setup. We have two ClubMAX 3000’s with the Saturn upgrade, aimed towards doing most of the graphic work. With the distributed scanning feature inside of BEYOND, we had a tremendous amount of flexibility with graphic, and beam content.
There are a lot of other laser manufactures selling similar powered systems, at nearly the same price point, but NONE OF THEM, come close to the quality, and power that the KVANT lasers produce, and the quality, at those price points."
Check out Lapis Laser Display on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/lapislaser/
Equipment
Laser Show Software: Pangolin BEYOND Ultimate
Laser Hardware: All FB4 setup
Lasers (KVANT): ClubMAX FB4 Series 3-6 Watt