Disco Ball

Whenever you go out to disco clubs, you will always have in sight a big, shining ball composed of tiny mirrors that would reflect all the lights from around the club. The spinning disco ball and the reflected rays coming from it would make it appear that you were in a sea of lights. This ball, known as a disco ball, is the most common symbol of disco.

Also known as the mirror ball, the Disco Ball is a spherical object that is capable of reflecting light to many directions at once and thus producing a beautiful and complex display. The surface consists of thousands of small mirror facets, almost of the same size and shape and covering the entire surface of the ball.
     Below: Disco balls hung from night club ceilings everywhere. Even small home units were made for your personal parties. The disco ball became such a pop culture icon that many items can now be found in the disco ball style, such as this stereo speaker and this disco ball USB for a computer.

Disco balls first appeared in nightclubs in the 1920s, long before disco even began. It can be seen in the string of nightclubs of Berlin. The disco ball was also featured in Die Sinfonie der Grobstadt, a German silent movie in 1927. In the 1970s, disco balls with all their gaudy effects became the perfect accompaniment to disco music, and were adopted in clubs everywhere. By the end of the 20th century, the disco ball has grown outward into another fad in its own right, and has been used in almost every dance style there is. The emergence of infrared and laser networks paved way for yet a new application of disco balls in order to disperse the lights in an even more powerful, striking way.

It is in Glasgow, Scotland where the world’s largest rotating disco ball is situated, in the ABC Nightclub. Disco balls have been used in major musical concert and shows. An example of a more 'cool', non-disco use of the disco ball for a concert was in 1987 when Pink Floyd used a disco ball. One eccentric use of the disco ball was when a 2-ton disco ball, which was embellished with $2 million worth of Swarovski crystals, was used by Madonna for her Confessions Tour Concert in 2006.

No matter where you see it or what it's being used for, when you see a disco ball you remember it as the prime visual symbol of a whole genre of music.