Greenbrier Lights Up

"The Christmas of the future" was what Kathy Strauss of Greenbrier Mall wanted for the annual holiday lighting festivities. Thinking outside the box, she called Image Engineering ® to create a holiday spectacular that would bring in spectators and pump up the holiday excitement.

"She was very specific about what she wanted. Lasers were her first choice." Said Andrew Suehle who choreographed the client's wishes with his production team. "The mall is very progressive." He approached his team with the concept. Two laser systems, a large-frame Ar+Kr white light laser and a 20 watt YAG laser would dance amidst the holiday decorations and lights of the mall.

"I was thrilled to design this show. Laser atmospherics are one of the most exciting aspects of my job." Said Amy Case, show designer. "Adding white light beams were genius. Green is great, but color adds a whole new level of beauty." She conferenced with Kathy to design the show from the audio on up.

"Kathy was very specific with her audio choices. She knew that Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra would mix well with her theme and the venue. She had certain songs that she envisioned with laser choreography." Amy took the album choices and filtered the best segments out to create the 18 minute soundtrack.

Jack Roemer mixed the soundtrack in house using ProTools, a professional, multi-track software for recording, editing and mastering audio. The CD track was also burned to a .wav file to bring into the laser show design software. The development of this feature has helped to speed show production. The designer can see the audio peaks and cue the laser effects to the music exactly.

At the mall, the production team added a special enhancement to the finale of the show. Two CO2 jets were placed on the stage. The last song reached crescendo and the jets were triggered. "Using the CO2 eliminated any hassle we would have had using pyrotechnics. The units are easy to set up and fire and require no special permits." Said Andrew Suehle. As the clouds of CO2 dissapated the crew targeted the star atop the tree, illuminating it on cue. "It was as if the laser energized the tree." Said the show's lead technician.

The crowds of the mall were thrilled with the show and Kathy summed up the experience, "Sales were up because of the event. I am very pleased."