Swedish House Mafia's Portola Set Included a 1,500-Watt Laser That Could Be Seen Miles Away

Swedish House Mafia‘s production at Portola Music Festival included a piece of laser hardware built on a scale far beyond the typical festival projector.The trio used KVANT’s Architect W1500B during their headlining performance in San Francisco, closing the festival’s Pier Stage and returning to Pier 80 after their pair of warehouse shows at the venue late last year.

The company bills the technology as the world’s most powerful full-color RGB laser.That claim comes from the manufacturer, but the underlying specifications underscore just how extreme the nearly 500-pound projector is.

Unlike conventional show projectors designed to rapidly draw patterns and animations, this static-beam system developed primarily for architectural, landmark and sky illumination.Its output emerges as a beam measuring roughly two feet across, and KVANT says it can remain visible from many miles away.

The International Laser Display Association notably awarded the W1500B second place in its 2025 Fenning Award for Technical Achievement, which recognizes technological advances in the field of laser displays.Check out photos from Swedish House Mafia’s Portola set below.

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