Royal Watch News

Queen Elizabeth to close Jubilee show with laser

Feb 13, 2012, 13:01 GMT

Queen Elizabeth

Britain's Queen Elizabeth will close her Diamond Jubilee concert by firing a giant laser down the Mall.

The monarch - who celebrates 60 years on the throne this year - will wind up the event on June 4 by raising a football-sized diamond of glass on a cushion outside her Buckingham Palace residence.

This will trigger a device to fire a laser beam over spectators to light a beacon 1,000 yards away by Admiralty Arch.

The beacon will be the last of hundreds lit across the UK - including at St. James' Palace, the Tower of London and 60 on Hadrian's Wall - and the laser will mark the end of three days of celebrations for the monarch's special anniversary.

The closing spectacular will follow immediately after a star-studded concert which is being organised by Take That singer Gary Barlow.

A host of big names have already signed up for the event, which is free to 10,000 members of the public via a ballot system.

Gary revealed last week: 'I've been working on this for about six months already to try and get the headline acts booked.

'I'm about 60 per cent through booking the bands, we've already got some pretty big acts: Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Sir Tom Jones, JLS, Jessie J, Ed Sheeran, Dame Shirley Bassey, Sir Cliff Richard.

'Nobody took much persuading. My focus at the moment is actually some of the American artists, because we're not only featuring British artists or Commonwealth artists.

'I've got to be honest, it's not a hard sell, everybody you talk to, you say, 'This is for the queen' and they're like, 'This is amazing, we want to be involved.''

The queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and other royals will attend the event, which will be staged at the Queen Victoria memorial at the end of The Mall, in front of Buckingham Palace.