Eye damage at Tomorrowland ?

[SrS]

I've just heard some sad news on the radio that at least 2 people got eye damage at the Tomorrowland festival in Antwerpen.

BOOM - The 21-year-old Jessica Van Opstal has lodged a complaint with the police against ID&T Belgium, organizer of the dance festival Tomorrowland in Boom, for eye damage after contact with laser light.

According to doctor, professor of ophthalmology Peter Stal Mans UZ Leuven, another visitor also lost vision to the central vision of one eye by laser light. The damage to the second visitor would be irreversible. For Van Opstal, there is still hope.

The expert was very indignant. "With this type of laser you need special care. It may only be aimed up and not to the public. This is really outrageous."

ID&T Belgium says that there was not a single report of security issues that may have occurred during the dance festival and calls it 'impossible' that this could happen. "We only work with very professional companies that specialize in placing lasers and are heavily monitored"

Source: http://www.nieuwsblad.be/Article/Det...MF04082009_006

I wonder if this can have negative impact on lasershows in the Netherlands & Belgium. I wouldn’t be surprised if an laser pointer was the actual cause of this issue

[ledfreak3d]

yea probably an other dumb laser operator thats using way to mutch power for audiance scanning
or could also be a phreak pointer accident

[soforene]

I wonder if that pic posted in the article is one of the actual event.
The power does seem rather "enthusiastic".

[White-Light]

The expert was very indignant. "With this type of laser you need special care. It may only be aimed up and not to the public. This is really outrageous."

The fact that he said this makes me think it was another pulsed incident.

[SrS]

I wonder if that pic posted in the article is one of the actual event.
The power does seem rather "enthusiastic".

Here are some pictures of the actual event: http://www.fotograferen.net/events/t...allpapers.html

The main stage really looks wicked!

[norty303]

yea probably an other dumb laser operator thats using way to mutch power for audiance scanning

I think thats a bit strong given the very thin information and speculation going on at this point.

Could it have been a Hugo gig?

[ledfreak3d]

could not realy come up with a other reason

yea think its probably hugo not sure who does shows for id&t

[colouredmirrorball]

damn.
I really hope this doesn't mean draconic laws here in Belgium. I don't want to spend days filling in a variance for each laser projector I build, and to adapt it when I modify something. I don't want to measure each and every frame with an expensive, qualified MPE-meter. I don't want to invest all my money into safety. I just want some cool shows.

There is one good thing: when our government has to form a law, they need ages. We still have some time.

[SrS]

In the Netherlands you will see the same faces most of the time. Doesn't matter if it says ID&T, Q-dance, B2S (& Cyndium nowadays?) on the flyer. So the lasers used are probably from LaserImage so I really doubt that the accident could have been caused by a pulsed laser.

Now I don’t know what power was used here or who operated the lasers. Maybe some other ppl on the forum do know more about this.

[shrad]

there is a fact demonstrated by the picture anyway, there doesn't seem to be some heavy fume or mist to help viewing the beams

that means >5W per head to get some visibility, and it hits the crowd...

fingers crossed about belgian legislation, or even european one

this is shameful I think... there is so much to be done with lasers in such an event, and they can't do without crowd scanning

what would it have costed if they had used 100mW heads around the crowd, and 5W heads in the sky?