As reliably as an evening with an epic sunset, social media platforms flooded with similar, colorfully striped images Tuesday night when the sky turned dark in San Francisco.
The laser show wasn’t promoting a global summit , footwear giant or a security company — this dazzling display marked a major milestone. San Francisco turned 175 on Tuesday, and what better way to celebrate a city that clearly loves a light show than to blast Civic Center with “Laser Space Cannons,” the brightest full color lasers in the world.
Behind the installation is the nonprofit arts group Illuminate, which is responsible for the Bay Lights , the Golden Mile project in Golden Gate Park, and most recently the giant naked statue , R-Evolution, on the Embarcadero. This marks the first time lasers were used to light up City Hall.
The event wasn’t announced until Monday , but Illuminate pulled it together without a snag, said founder Ben Davis. “We were able to move quickly because Illuminate operates within a long-standing, high-trust network here in San Francisco,” he wrote in an email to SFGATE…