If you are a fan of Taylor Swift or K-pop you may have seen the light shows in the audience during the concerts. The company PixMob uses a variety of technologies to bring these light shows to concerts like Taylor Swift, Cold Play, and Lady Gaga tours. This technology has been around for a while but has only recently been utilized in this way. Each light device has a small computer inside that can receive signals to create light designs either preprogrammed or controlled by a light operator.
Radio waves sent to wristbands or other led lights can create color and flashing light patterns. This however only works well in situations of assigned seating, where the audience stays put. K-pop concerts tend to use the Bluetooth method of sending signals to light devices. This way audience members can move around and the light patterns can still turn out correctly. The downside of this is that it requires audience members to have a device with Bluetooth that will send location data to the system in order for the lighting design to work.
The technology that is being utilized for the current Taylor Swift tour involves infrared and also allows audience members to move around. Infrared is the technology that is used in remote controls. The wristbands receive data from robotic transmitters located throughout the concert venue and can create patterns. To create shapes a mask is put over the infrared transmitter. Wristbands will light up if they are in the path of the infrared transmission and not light up otherwise. This method however isn't able to create as detailed images as the Bluetooth method, but is a seamless way to provide lighting design to a concert.
To learn more about concert LEDs see the video below to learn about the technology from a lighting design company.
