Madonna and lighting designer Roy Bennett use Lightwave Prism Series lasers by Arctos for the 2008 Sticky and Sweet World Tour.  Lasers are integrated with the main lighting control system and playback is achieved through multiple grandMA consoles synchronized to show timecode. Content is served from individual Lightwave Laser Servers embedded in each fixture. This approach guaranteed frame accurate playback of all lighting instruments, including lasers, at each concert in every country.

Laser effects were provided for the song "Ray of Light" and for the show finale "Give it to Me."   The show used five full-color lasers with a total output power of 49 Watts.   All of the lasers were Lightwave Prism Series, which are manufactured specifically for Lightwave by Arctos in Germany.  Lightwave holds exclusive distribution rights for these lasers in all of North and South America.

  This tour extended through Europe, USA, Canada, Mexico, and South America in 2008.

   Unique to this concert tour and application was the method of laser control.  Instead of being controlled by a live operator on a dedicated PC, or a proprietary control system, modern DMX media servers were utilized.  This allowed the lighting designer to have direct control of the laser fixtures using familiar tools through the lighting desk.  For this tour, specifically, a separate grandMA was provided by Lightwave with a custom laser fixture definition that allowed the programmer to communicate with the lasers just as they would any other fixtures.   The entire show was programmed to timecode for precision playback of the content from show to show.  Once programming was complete on the grandMA network, the show was consolidated into one main and one backup console responsible for the entire execution including lighting, video, and lasers.   This is the future of laser control and integration, and is a tool that is available to Lightwave clients every day.  

 The full collection of images from this tour may be viewed in the gallery here: Madonna Sticky and Sweet image gallery

Photo Credit: Image #6 (Center of bottom row) flickr member JesS_VLC