Nike’s Laser Mountain at Fiesta Bowl

Lightwave International uses over 200 Watts of full-color direct-diode and OPS lasers to brand Camelback Mountain for thousands of fans at the 2011 Fiesta Bowl in Arizona.

The face of the mountain, approximately 2 miles from the laser projectors, becomes a canvas for laser light during the festivities. Projected images include massive versions of “JUST DO IT,” The Oregon Ducks’ ”O” and the Nike Swoosh. The projected images are many hundreds of feet wide created by a massive collection of the world’s largest full-color entertainment lasers.

The mountain’s composition is characterized by high absorption in the yellow region. To accomplish the task of projecting the yellow Nike Swoosh, 15 full-color lasers and multiple 577nm Gold OPS lasers were used to force the mountain’s color palette into submission. Projections from this distance are not possible with any other technology, and Lightwave is unaware of any other execution worldwide using lasers on a mountain in this scale. Several proprietary techniques were utilized to generate this level of brightness and camera-compatible images that are important for the viral properties of such a campaign.