Pyros, lasers, confetti, inflatables…there’s a multitude of ways to shock, wow and impress your audience, and technology is making it more impressive and affordable than ever, as Adam Woods reports…

News that The Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas described the concept for his debut solo UK tour as a “Pink Floyd laser light show” will have delighted fans of good old-fashioned stage effects.

“It could be a Stonehenge disaster but I’m going for it,” he explained. You presume he hasn’t read the saga of The Wall in the December issue of UK music magazine Mojo, in which Roger Waters shudders a little at the cost of a real old-school Pink Floyd show (in 1980/81 the band are said to have lost $600,000 on the album’s 31-date, four-leg tour).

And then again, perhaps he has. “Things have changed – the technology is a lot cheaper now,” said Waters, who is even now planning a Broadway version of The Wall.

The falling costs, the continued strength of the live sector, the fact that music has seemingly made a return to the effects-heavy 1980s – all of these things have contributed to a strong year for stage effects companies. Pyro, lasers, haze, cryogenics, ground fog, confetti, even inflatables, are everywhere. They never truly go away, but they’ve also never been so ubiquitous.

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