Have you ever thought about laser safety and whether watching laser displays in your local venue could be harmful? There are so many different lasers used for different applications and we can all probably guess that a laser used for cutting or welding metal will be fatally dangerous to human eyes as well as any living tissue. But how about all the beautiful visible laser displays we are so thrilled about at concerts, tours and parties? Is it fine to let these enter our eyes?
Well, that depends!
There are some safe laser shows, those that are potentially hazardous and then those that are simply dangerous to get even nearby. Unfortunately, the majority of small club/rave/private shows will be probably quite far from being 100% safe and possibly even some bigger shows may come with some serious safety issues. This is mainly due to a lack of training and/or irresponsibility of venue owners or event managers.
Lasers as such are dangerous and can cause irreversible harm to us humans, especially to our sensitive vision. Staring into even a 50mW non-moving laser beam is very dangerous and shining it directly into your eye from close proximity will harm your vision and could blind you permanently.
So how can be the show done safely with lasers such as KVANT Clubmax or even more powerful lasers such as Atom and Spectrum? Or any other professional systems in that matter?
It’s about what is used, how the show is designed, how the safety measures are utilised and how it all fits around the legislation and common sense. Here are a few basic suggestions:
- The core of any safe laser display is the equipment that is used and the person running the show. It would be very difficult to produce a 100% safe laser display if the equipment used for the show fails the laser safety standards and doesn’t come fitted with all the safety features required by law. The law is different in different parts of the world so it is essential to check out what is required in your region. At the same time, the laser display designer/operator should have a deep knowledge of laser display production and laser safety.
- If the show is programmed so no audience scanning is performed (meaning that the laser beams are not hitting anyone’s face and eyes) and when some basic laser safety rules are applied to audience safety zones, physical masking and reflections management, the show is likely to be safe to watch.
- If audience scanning is performed (meaning that the laser beams are going across faces and eyes) the safety side of things gets a lot more complicated and complex. Virtually every effect within the show must be assessed and proven to be safe, which involves measurements with expensive devices and some complicated mathematical calculations. Safety-wise, there’s a huge difference between static laser beams and fast-moving scanned effects. Any static laser beam pointing into the audience even for a split of second can be considered to be hazardous, whereas fast-moving and large-size scanned effects are more likely to be a lot safer.
never look into a static laser beam, including all laser pointers with power output exceeding 1mw.