Ivan Dryer

Ivan Dryer (1939 - ) is generally considered to be the father of the commercial laser light show industry. He is the founder of the world's first continuously running laser entertainment, known as Laserium®.

Dryer was a filmmaker in the early 1970s. On one project, he worked with Dr. Elsa Garmire, a California Institute of Technology physicist interested in laser light art. (She had previously worked with other artists on special event laser shows.) Dryer was disappointed because the resulting film, Laser Image, did not have the pure colors and shimmer of laser light. Dryer realized that it was possible only to capture the special beauty of laser light by using the light itself, not in film or video form.