Samsung Galaxy

ER Stages the World’s Biggest Laser Show

The team at ER Productions collaborated with Italian agencies, Eventually and Giò Forma to stage the biggest display of lasers the world has ever seen in Milan.

Based on the concept of connectivity, the spectacular event celebrated the launch of Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and saw some of the most iconic buildings in Milan’s Porta Nuova business district connected using lasers in an elaborate display that took the city by storm.

Emerging from a giant multimedia cube formed of video, laser and light located in Gae Aulenti Square, lasers were mapped across the highest skyscrapers in the city.

Buildings featured in the impressive show included the Bosco Verticale, Palazzo Lombardia, Solaris, Samsung and UniCredit buildings, eventually returning to a purpose built music stage in the square where Fatboy Slim played a headline set. Designed to excite the audience at every stage, the lasers show peaked during Fatboy Slim’s performance.

Over 10-tonnes of laser fixtures and an incredible 32 smoke machines were placed at various locations around the site including parks, balconies and skyscraper rooftops, in the potentially record breaking show.

Created for Samsung by the agency Eventually under the creative direction of Anghela Alò and Claudio Santucci of Giò Forma, it is the largest laser show to be staged in Milan.

Ryan Hagan of ER Productions, the British company behind the laser display, said of the potentially record breaking display “Installing 222 laser fixtures in just 3 days and 2 nights over a square kilometre of Milan was extremely challenging but thanks to a great team we were able to achieve the impossible. Guinness World Records are currently checking to see if it is indeed the biggest laser display the world has ever seen but it certainly looks that way.

“With an unparalleled beam profile that’s extremely tight and bright even at a distance, Coherent OPS laser units were selected from ER’s stock to use in the skyscraper sequence.

In terms of the colour palette, we used blues and green with bursts of white laser to achieve a futuristic, electronic look that ran through the video content to form the giant multimedia cube. During Fatboy Slim’s set the colour range exploded to reflect the party vibe.

Because of the distances between city buildings and main stage, which could be up to a kilometre as the crow flies, we relied upon wireless artnet and fibre optics to connect the effects at each location during the 12- minute show.”

Creative Director, Anghela Alò said “The show was conceived as an explosion of sound and light that would reach the most hidden corners of the city. Laser mapping redefined the outlines of the buildings and played with their forms.”