“One of our main goals here within the Pangolin, KVANT, and Unity Group is to hear the voices of our clients in the industry, and create technologies that allow this beautiful effect to be deployed more artistically across a wider range of mediums,” states Lyra Letourneau, Creative Director for the organization. Her sentiment reflects the deep passion expressed by their team, and the values behind the brands, that eventually came together as a unified group.
The Beginnings
Founded by William R. Benner Jr. in 1986, Pangolin got its start with laser design software and control hardware, and progressed to integrated components like XY scanning systems, drive electronics, and audience scanning safety. Pangolin currently holds over 50 international patents for products released to market. Benner can point to his career beginning when the Apollo 11 flight put the first man on the moon: as his father, an electronics engineer, wired mission control and instilled a passion for engineering into his son. With an inherited interest in electronics and technology, he excelled in the field. He participated in the “Skill Olympics” representing the U.S. and eventually receiving recognition for his efforts from President Ronald Reagan. During his youth in the 1980s, he would catch the laser shows happening at the time and believed there was a better way to control, move, and steer a laser beam. Over the next decades, Benner would go on to do just that, founding Pangolin and several sub-divisions including ScannerMAX and LASORB. As Benner shared, “We brought our first laser system to the International Laser Display conference and expected everyone else would have things that were far superior. But what we found is our technology was far more capable than anything else out there… This is when we knew Pangolin Laser Systems was on the right trajectory, with all systems go.”
KVANT, which translates to “quantum,” was founded in Slovakia in 1995 by Pavol Kubosek and got its start making industrial laser equipment for universities and research institutes. By 1996, KVANT had moved to manufacturing products with broader applications, including complete laser projection systems for the entertainment sector, as well as laser modules and sources for various scientific, medical, and industrial applications. The entertainment lighting community quickly embraced their products due to their inherent beam quality, and they have since become a benchmark and industry standard for professional laser display equipment. In a passionate example of that adoption, the renowned multimedia show designer and LD Martin Gabčo sold his apartment in 2003 to buy one of KVANT’s first laser systems. Gabčo’s enthusiasm for KVANT didn’t wane, and he went on to join KVANT in 2012 as a laser engineer and programmer. Today, the company holds 20 patents for laser projection technologies released to market.
Better Together
In 2015, Pangolin and KVANT took a major leap, creating the start of what would become the Pangolin, KVANT, and Unity Laser group. As Justin Perry, co-partner explains, “We had a vision to unite two great organizations, with the end goal of building a better laser system as a whole.” Dusan Navara, co-partner went on to state, “Our organizations just clicked, and we both saw that this market had not seen any new generation of laser products in a while.” Both organizations then set out on a unified mission, to ignite the laser industry and bring lasers into the mainstream lighting and FX realm. Today, the organizations collectively have 98 employees globally, with offices across the U.S. and Europe. They have also recently brought on new developmental partners, with their mutual acquisition of the Showtacle company’s IP, and integration of members of their development team.
Pangolin and KVANT are proud to now offer a full range of laser light show projectors ranging from 1.7W all the way to 1,000W. Their powerful Spectrum and ATOM Series Lasers are available in a combination of OPSL and diode, or pure diode configurations—inside a new, truly state of the art foam-aluminum housing, providing maximum brightness and performance in a sleek, compact, and convenient enclosure—ideal for touring and rental houses. They also offer a suite of laser design tools with QuickShow and BEYOND, as well as a broad range of laser control hardware solutions such as FB4, for all entertainment lighting applications and workflows.
Professional Core
“Innovation, quality, and support: These are core values I have always stood by, and have instilled into the organization,” explained Benner. In an effort to better serve the industry, the group has expanded its leadership as well. In 2019, renowned laser designer Lyra Letourneau was brought on to serve as the organization’s Creative Director, to help further improve the company’s support, education, and training divisions. “This part of my role entails the creation of new tutorial videos, more detailed documentation including new manuals, as well as offering training services and seminars for clients, to help clients get the most from our products,” Letourneau says. Perry went on to state, “We take support to heart and realize that we have a duty to our partners and the industry at large. I am proud to note we have a 24/7 customer support network in place, a global service centers setup, and a team of passionate laser professionals conducting training efforts around the world.” Navara added, “We are continually investing into research and development, brining in new engineering partners to help keep us on the cutting edge… This constant push is one of the driving forces behind some of our most recent developments, such as our new Spectrum with OPSL orange, and our one-of-a-kind foam aluminum housing that really reduces the weight of a laser and makes it vastly more comfortable and convenient to work with.”
An Expanding Universe
Pangolin and KVANT products can now be seen on the lion’s share of professional events, installations, and projects taking place worldwide. Prominent tours including TSO, Bad Bunny, Lady Gaga, and Paul McCartney (via Image Engineering and Image SFX); Justin Bieber and Post Malone (via Pyrotecnico), as well as Tool and Foo Fighters (via Production Design International), to name just a few. You can also see Pangolin and KVANT products in use in major stadiums such as Chase Center (San Francisco) and Mercedes Benz Stadium (Atlanta), as well as on corporate events for Tesla (via Laser Light Company, LLC), Microsoft (via Precision Lasers) and major cruise ships like Royal Caribbean. Their products are also very prominent on the festival circuit, regularly being used at Electric Daisy Carnival and other events organized by Insomniac along with the Ultra Music Festival in Miami and other major festivals and productions.
Safety First
For Pangolin and KVANT, safety is a foremost concern. Almost 20 years ago, Benner patented the PASS hardware, which is currently the primary means by which audience scanning laser shows are done in the U.S. The team has also developed other award-winning technology to ensure safety measures, such as their advanced Beam Attenuation Map (BAM) that allows a designer to define safety areas within a show so that the brightness of the laser is reduced by a specified amount, in a specified area. Additionally, a wide range of mounting hardware and masking plates have been engineered, to fit the KVANT ClubMAX, ATOM, and Spectrum systems.
A very worthwhile effort has been the team’s release of a comprehensive safety and training program for new laser clients, to help ensure they know how to deploy lasers properly and compliantly, at public shows and events.
On the Horizon
Like those early NASA engineers that inspired Benner, Pangolin and KVANT see challenges as opportunities, and that was how they reacted to the pandemic. While others cut personnel and hunkered down, they did not let go of any of their 98 employees, and instead they used the “break” as an opportunity for more development. Letourneau explains, “The executive teams saw it as a great chance to finally develop BeamBrush control. No one had been able to figure it out, and many had given up on it, but we pursued the dream, and now it’s a reality.” BeamBrush is a laser system that provides instant zoom, wash, waving, and positioning and is combined with the sharp coherent profile of a laser. This was a concept that Benner had conceived of in 1992 and ultimately came to fruition inside a laser, thanks to module development work done by KVANT’s Dr. Viktor Dubek. In 2020, BeamBrush won the first place ILDA Fenning Award for Technical Achievement, and in 2021 won both the LDI Awards for Best New Special Effect Product and Best Product Presentation.
Going forward, there will be more growth, such as their acquisition of Showtacle and onboarding of members of their development team, and new technologies such as remote monitoring of permanent laser installations, via their BEYOND server system. It’s clear Pangolin and KVANT know who they are and are laser-focused on the professional market, and they are making strides to ensure lasers continue to emerge as a staple in the professional lighting space.
This content was written by PLSN with Pangolin and KVANT.
