Lasershow tarm Showlaser GmbH Baku European Games Opening "Map of Europe" www.tarm.de Ralf Lottig

The Baku 2015 European Games, were the inaugural edition of the European Games, an international multi-sport event for athletes representing the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) of Europe. It took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 12 to 28 June 2015 and featured almost 6,000 athletes from 50 countries competing in 20 sports.
Today, it seems that no opening of a major intentional sporting event is complete without a stunning opening ceremony. Frequently, these combine live action, audio-visual effects and pyrotechnics. The inaugural European Games, recently held in Baku, Azerbaijan, were no exception.
One of the highlights of this nighttime opening ceremony was a laser-enhanced segment which portrayed the abduction of Europa by Zeus (in the form of a beautiful white bull). This is an ancient myth, often attributed to the Cretan/Minoan civilization, frequently seen as representing east to west migration and the birth of Europe.
Held in the purpose-built, 68,000 seat, Olympic Stadium, this enactment featured a life size and articulated bull puppet which slowly and serenely flew across the darkened arena. A female dancer was suspended by invisible wires on the bull’s back, enabling otherwise impossible choreographed moves in mid-air. The arena floor was staged to represent the shore of the Caspian Sea.
While the bull and female dancer slowly “flew” across the sea, to the accompaniment of classical piano music, a high brightness, pure white laser display was projected below them on the floor of the arena. Beginning with an apparently random pattern of interconnected, moving points of light, it coalesced near mid-flight to form the map of Europe, which then slowly moved across the floor to signify Europa’s trip across the sea. As the pair flew away, the laser projection again became a stunning and dynamic abstract array of interconnected points of light, which could be interpreted as the many cities of modern Europe.
The show was concepted and directed by the creative group FIVE CURRENTS, who contracted tarm Showlaser for the design and operation of the laser effects. They chose to make the Zeus bull/Europa sequence completely white to highlight the attractive bull and the purity image of Europa. As most readers will know, white laser shows are always a challenge, because white laser light can only be achieved by mixing beams of various different wavelengths (colors). A white laser show in a large outdoor arena is particularly difficult because the large display demands substantial power, and the various combined colors have to stay perfectly aligned over large throw (projection) distances to avoid color fringes on the images and effects. Plus, light at different wavelengths behaves differently when passing through refractive optics (e.g., lenses and some modulators). For these and other reasons, tarm created these laser effects using a total of 16 high power PHAENON X AT projectors controlled by built in Lasergraph DSP MK2 units. These full color projectors each include five different lasers - all Coherent Taipan lasers based on optically pumped semiconductor laser (OPSL) technology. The various Taipan lasers were at standard (non-custom) Coherent wavelengths: red (639 nm wavelength), yellow (577 nm), green (532nm), cyan (488 nm) and blue (460 nm).
Why these five colors? Many color laser projectors include just red, green and blue, but these alone do not produce a good, pure white (or yellow for that matter). The red and green appear to separate in the eye of the viewer. Cyan and yellow together produce a good white. Combining RGBCY thus gives both a good white and the high brightness of five lasers, delivering a total power of 25 watts from each of the 16 projectors. For sharp images at long distances, such as the map of Europe in this Baku show, the pointing stability and low beam divergence of the OPSL technology is an important advantage. This divergence is reduced even further by proprietary optics in all PHAENON projectors. www.tarm.de