The company was founded, owned, and managed by Lowell Fowler, Richard Belliveau, David Blair, and Bob Schacherl before it was bought by Belgium-based Barco in 2008.
When Lowell Fowler began Blackstone Audio Visual, their main focus was installing more advanced lighting equipment in nightclubs.
[3] The three partners installed Pulsar, Clay Paky, Coemar, Optikinetics, JEM, and other European brands that were difficult to find in North America.
[5] Around the same time, Belliveau set up a manufacturing division called Lightwave Research for the purpose of designing and building new products.
Because they were not over 5 milliwatts they were Class IIIA lasers and did not require a variance to operate in most states in the U.S.[5] Dataflash was a microprocessor-controlled strobe system with DMX512 control.
Until that time, most automated lighting in the live event production industry were rented, and Vari-Lite dominated the concert and touring market.
The Intellabeam allowed production companies to buy their own automated lighting and rent them for concert tours and corporate events.