The Sun 1966
Liquid light
In autumn 1966 the light show was made by hand: coloured oil and dye between glass slides, boiled by a projector lamp with its heat filter taken out.
Surface: warped noise boiling like the slide in a projector.
A Pink Floyd tribute
MONEY
Fly the band's story from 1966 to 1994, one planet for each era of the light show.
Next show
Date, venue and city to come
Mercury 1967
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Recorded at Abbey Road in the spring of 1967, in the studio next to the Beatles making Sgt Pepper. The title comes from chapter seven of The Wind in the Willows.
Surface: a kaleidoscope, after the prism lens Vic Singh shot the cover through.
Venus 1968
A Saucerful of Secrets
The first Pink Floyd sleeve by Hipgnosis, the studio of Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, who went on to design The Dark Side of the Moon.
Surface: two inks that will not mix, boiling in a slide.
Earth 1971
Live at Pompeii
Filmed over four days in October 1971 in the empty amphitheatre at Pompeii, with no audience at all.
Surface: cooled crust over magma, cracked like a heated slide.
Mars 1973
The Dark Side of the Moon
At Earls Court in May 1973, a seven-foot model plane crashed into the stage at the end of On the Run.
Surface: op art. Two sets of rings in a vibrating colour pair, tuned to equal brightness.
Jupiter 1975
Wish You Were Here
On 5 June 1975, while the band were mixing Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Syd Barrett walked into Abbey Road. At first the band did not recognise him.
Surface: marbled bands in the colours of an oil film.
Saturn 1977
Animals
In December 1976 a 12-metre inflatable pig broke loose over Battersea Power Station and came down in Kent.
Look for the pig in orbit.
Uranus 1979
The Wall
On the 1980–81 tour a wall was built across the stage during the show, then brought down at the end.
Keep going: this one comes down too.
Neptune 1994
The Division Bell
By 1994 the light show ran on hundreds of automated lights and copper-vapour lasers.
Its moon is a mirror ball.
1966 1994
The planets line up
That was the light show's story. The rest of the page belongs to MONEY: a slide you can run yourself, the history in 3D, the dates, the band, and how to book them.
Interactive · the projector
Run the light show
In 1966 Peter Wynne-Willson took the heat filters out of slide projectors and let the lamp cook coloured liquids between glass. This slide is a fluid simulation running on your graphics card.
Drag across the slide to drop dye. Heat the lamp to boil it.
Visuals are paused. Press Play visuals at the top to run the slide.
Learn · the constellation
The story in light
51 people, places, records and machines on a helix of time: 1962 at the bottom, 1995 at the top. Scroll to climb the years, drag to turn the helix, pick a star to read its story.
Drag to turn the helix. Tap a star to read its story.
- People
- Places
- Records
- Light and sound
Browse as a list
The show
What you'll hear
Set list to come. This is where MONEY's set goes: which albums and songs they play, whether any album is played in full, how long the show runs, and what the production includes.
Live video to come. One full song filmed at a real show. It will load only when someone presses play.
Live
Dates
No dates are listed yet. These handbills show how each show will look once real dates are added.
-
Date
Venue name
City, State
Doors · Show
Tickets soon -
Date
Venue name
City, State
Doors · Show
Tickets soon -
Date
Venue name
City, State
Doors · Show
Tickets soon
Who plays
The band
Member names, roles and photos will go here.
- NameGuitar, vocals
- NameBass, vocals
- NameKeyboards
- NameDrums
- NameSaxophone, vocals
For Syd
Where it started
Syd Barrett named the band after two bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. He had trained as a painter at Camberwell.
He left in 1968 and went home to Cambridge, where he painted and kept a garden. He died there on 7 July 2006.
Sources: Syd Barrett, Wikipedia · Pink Floyd archive, 2006
Dawn
Book MONEY
Tell us the date, the room and how many people it holds.
Press kit
- Bio, short and long
- Press photos
- Logo files
- Tech rider and stage plot
Downloads will appear here.