PTA Laser Shows

Written for PTA event planners and updated for 2024 season, updated Nov 2024 for 2025 bookings.

Hi, and welcome to our page relating specifically to PTA Laser shows!

You're in good company, many schools and organisations have used us for their events in the last few years, and hopefully this page will guide you through the process in a friendly, informative and open way.

It's probably no surprise to know we do a great deal of work with PTAs and other similar voluntary organisations and groups. As such we fully understand the hurdles faced when planning an event such as a Laser or Fireworks show. So, if you are new to the role (or not!) we make it our goal to keep everything as simple as possible, allowing you to concentrate on the planning of your event.

First of all, if you have never seen a Laser show, then have a look at this video to give you an idea.

 

What we provide as standard:

  • All our Laser shows are fully choreographed to music, not just played along to it.
  • 80 watts of Lasers power across 4 individually controlled Lasers. Laser power does relate to brightness, but please read this.
  • Arena haze machines to create those amazing Laser cloud effects.
  • Substantial 20kW PA system which can be used for announcements and pre show background music if required. This system will easily cover audiences up to and beyond 1000 spectators.
  • Submission of NOTAMs to the CAA.
  • Site surveys and risk assessments.
  • £5m public liability Insurance.
  • Power generation and distribution/cabling.
  • With enough notice we can create a 30 second Laser marketing video for you to use on your socials etc for advertising at no cost at all - we would just need your PTA logo, and enough time!

Naturally we are Laser safety trained (LSO) just as we are PWSK with Pyrotechnics. We train all of our crew regularly on all aspects of safety - shouldn't need to be said but it's one area we won't compromise on.

Any other Extras/Upgrades?

Yes absolutely. We can provide low noise fireworks / traditional fireworks / Gas flames, BIG red button, or anything else from our hire stock.

We are completely self contained take care of everything on the Laser show site.

How much does it cost?

We have been told we are cheaper than a lot of the competition, sometimes significantly so. Even so we do not compromise on our Laser shows! Put simply this is possible because everything taken care of in-house, we are not an agency using 3rd party suppliers! What helps is we are not just a Laser company, we are a fully equipped, established VAT registered production company including Lasers, Sound, Power, Lighting, Video and Pyrotechnics. We combine all these individual areas expertise into a single product at a significant cost saving of them priced individually.

Please note all prices are +VAT, and VAT invoices will be provided, other than that lets make this super clean and simple!

The 2025 cost for our shows is £2149.

Travel is included for 50miles/1hr from our base in Godstone, Surrey. Beyond this we charge £65/hr/50 miles - This is each way. We spent some time calculating this and it just covers our staff and transport/fuel costs. For events where it's too far to travel in one day, we may need to price an overnight stay. We are happy to comebine/share travel between jobs if in a similar location, but both far from our base.

Second Laser Show

We can also repeat the show, or run one of other other shows after the main one. Some event organisers like doing this, as it keeps guests in the event longer, and gives more customer spending time! Obviously this is not possible with fireworks, as they are all consumed in the first show. But we can load our Laser system with a new program and run another, or even repeat the first one. We would recommend at least a 30 minute break between shows to give us enough time to do this.

Options:

  • 3x G-Flames show add-on £410 See Video
  • 5x G-Flames show add-on £605
  • Low-noise Firework Finale from £175 See Video
  • Big Red Button £45 See Video
  • Second Laser Show £325
Payment terms:

When booking there is a £200 booking fee. This is deducted from the final payment. The final payment must be made within three weeks of the event, you can of course pay it as soon as you wish, if you like to be super organised (bonus points for this!)

Notes on power:

We include our 20Kva diesel road tow generator. If you are able to supply your own to the same specification we can reduce our show price above by £150. It is not possible to power this show from 13 amp mains sockets! We are happy for you to supply your own power, as long as its at least a 63amp single phase supply, or 32A three phase, and we will reduce the total invoiced amount by £150+vat. We will still supply all required power distribution.

How do our shows work?

We apply our experience gained from more than 20 years of professional firework displays and apply this to our Laser shows.

We use 4 Laser projectors and position these across a 20-40m wide show area. These are set back from the audience by around 30-50meters. The PA system sits around 10-30m back from the audience. This is all controlled from our show control which is from within our vehicle.

Whilst this is far more involved and time consuming to setup and break down than a self contained trailer (or similar), it gives the Laser show an uncompromising level of scale and ability to impress, which is just not possible from positioning the Lasers all in the same location.

In addition we provide smoke machines and fans which provide the cloud/sky effects people love so much with Lasers. These we position upwind of the Lasers and this adds greatly to the impact of the Lasers.

On the Day

On the day of the show, we will arrive around 1pm, or often for PTA shows, after lunch time. We will be fully setup within in around 3 hours depending on site access and complexity. When it is dark enough, we will do some initial Laser checks at a reduced power to ensure everything is working as expected, and also test the audio system. After that it's simply waiting for show time.

After the show we leave the Lasers on for a short while so people can enjoy them, take pictures etc as the event comes to a close, then we begin packing down the kit and will be clear of the site within about 2 hours after the show end.

Poor weather, vehicle access etc

We mention this as we like to be prepared, and the reality of outdoor events in fields is they can be problematic for even our vehicles. Occasionally, especially with distant shows, we may ask if you have a friendly local 4x4 owner. Whilst we do have 'proper' off-road tyres on our vans, they can still struggle on some sites, especially with poor drainage. If the event is local we have our own 4x4 if needed - whilst this can be on hand for your show as well, it's just not cost effective for most PTA organisers for us to put on another driver and fuel costs, especially if the show is some distance from our base.

Power

We are fully self powered! In fact and even better, at the time of writing we have been sucessfully running our Laser shows (PA/Lasers/Hazers/Control systems) entirely from battery. This is proving so sucessful, that we will likely no longer need diesel generators for anything but the laergest events.

Watching a Laser Show

Even now not many people really know what a Laser show is. We frequently get asked which direction do you look. The simple answer is just like a fireworks show, you look towards the area where the Lasers and audio comes from! If you want to see what we mean, check out this YouTube video below:

Does the weather influence or cause problems with a show?

The UK is no stranger to changes in weather, and we have pretty much seen it all! The short answer is that as long as we can get access, and there are no MET office weather warnings in place, we can go ahead with the show, but lets explain how the weather impacts a Laser show in more detail.

Rain

Not a problem. We can (and have) continued with our Laser shows in some truly heavy rain. Lasers actually look magical in the rain, the beams reflect off the rain droplets and look amazing in the air, so its not a problem for us.

Wind

The only time wind impacts a Laser show is with smoke/haze machines. We position our smoke machines upwind, but changes in wind can cause issues. We mitigate this by using more than one smoke machine and also have large fans to help. There are some cases however were we just cannot make this work for example in small sites tight venues, in cases like this the Lasers are still visible, but just not as bright as they would be with haze/smoke in the air.

Very dry weather

Lasers are made visible (as are all light beams) by impurities in the air which the beams reflect on. That could be water, dust, pollen, even pollution!

Very dry summer evenings and frosty winter nights dry the air out making the beams less visible, regardless of Laser power. This is why we use haze machines to enhance the visibility of the beams. This also creates the amazing floating cloud effects people love with Lasers. This is more work for us, but it's worth the effort as it looks fantastic. You cannot get the same effects by using more powerful Lasers, which is why we spend time getting this right.

Location/Obstacles/Local Hazards

We cannot for safety reasons aim our Lasers where they may hit or make contact with either the audience or any member of public. This includes pointing on buildings where there are windows where the Lasers may pass through into persons within a building. So for example a very tall building near by. We would either need to aim the lasers above the building or choose a different direction. There is no situation *ever* that an outdoor one off Laser show should be able to make direct contact with a member of the audience or public at least without some very specialist and precise exposure measurements having been calculated and measured first. For a one off show, this is just not practical so all our shows are seen in front and above you, just to keep everything simple and safe.

In addition we also cannot use our Lasers within close proximity of an air port or its flight paths without prior notice (Airports get very nervous about this) That's not to say it's not possible to have a Laser show near Gatwick or Heathrow for example, it just means there are additional considerations which we need to look at.

Other Sensible Considerations

Event cancellation insurance, ARGH insurance(!!) Now to be clear, we have never had to cancel or failed to turn up to any booking we've ever had. We certainly have had problems to overcome with the technologies we use or bad weather throwing spanners in the works, that's all part of the 'fun' of providing cutting edge technologies for outdoor entertainment. That all being said, it is important to consider cancellation insurance if something unforeseen were to happen. We are looking at pointers with this to get you started and will update in due course.

Show Availability - Don't dismiss Thursdays or Sundays!

There is huge demand for Fridays and Saturdays around the 5th November. Reality is - it's simply not possible to give everyone these preferred dates, so we have to work around theses as best as we can. Of the back of this some of our longest and most successful groups we work with host their events on either a Thursday or Sunday. They are very successful as a result, as they position their events away from huge competing ones. Something to think about!