Membership: Frequently asked questions

A: No, ILDA does not require sponsorship. It is illegal for U.S.-based trade associations such as ILDA to require sponsorship or similar prior approval by existing members. This is because existing members could conspire to keep competitors out of the trade association.

A U.S.-based trade association must be open to all who meet reasonable, non-restrictive membership requirements. In any questionable cases, the ILDA Board can review and approve memberships as per the ILDA Bylaws.

Please see the ILDA Membership Requirements page, which is at the separate ILDA Member & Event Management website.

A: All ILDA Members are bound by the ILDA Code of Ethics and Code of Business Practice, and acknowledge the Lasershow Safety - Basic Principles document. We make this clear to new members.

If an ILDA Member violates the Codes or Principles, then anyone (the general public or another Member) can file a complaint with the ILDA Ethics Committee.

Hopefully, unethical or unsafe companies will not want to deal with potential Ethics Complaints, and will decide not to join ILDA.

(We receive a few complaints, on average, each year. Usually the complaint is resolved quietly to both parties' satisfaction. There have been some occasions when ILDA has revoked membership and effectively "kicked out" a company.)

While this is not a perfect system to guarantee all transactions with Members, it does provide some protection. It is a useful way to have an impartial body — the Ethics Committee — work to resolve any problems with an ILDA Member. For more information, see the Consumer protection page.

A: Simply check our online Membership database. You can search using various criteria such as company name, location, type of Membership, etc. to find if a specific company is a Member.

A: ILDA welcomes all types of laserists. Often, you can tell something about the size of a company by reading the description they submitted to the online Membership directory. Of course, you can also visit their website to get a feel for past projects and staffing levels.

Also, for ILDA Corporate Members, ILDA dues are based on the company's stated annual billings for lasershow sales. There are three dues levels, for companies billing over USD $1,000,000; companies billing between $250,000 and $1,000,000; and for companies billing below $250,000.

In the online Membership directory, you can see which dues level — Corporate 1, 2 or 3 — each company fits into. This gives a general idea of their size in the laser display industry. (ILDA does not check up on the billings claims; we go by what the laser company states when they join or renew.)

A: ILDA dues do NOT run from the first time you pay dues until one year later. Instead, ILDA dues run from February 1 to the following January 31.

• If you join in mid-year, you pay only partial dues.
• If you join towards the end of the year, you get a special deal with the rest of that year and the entire next year.
• Otherwise (if you are currently or recently a Member) you pay dues for the period February 1 - January 31.

Here are details:

For new members joining in mid-year, the dues are prorated. This means that the later in the year you join, the less you pay for that year. (For example, if you join on August 1, the dues will be approximately 1/2 of full-year dues.) In January, then you will be asked to renew from February 1 to the following January 31 at the full year dues cost.

For new members joining in December or January, they pay a full year’s dues. They get those months (Dec & Jan) plus the entire next dues year starting February 1. This is in effect a one-time special deal where a new member gets 13 or 14 months for the price of 12.

For current ILDA Members, they are asked to renew at the end of each dues year; for example, dues year 2025 Members will be asked to renew during January 2026. The renewal will be good from February 1 2026 through the following January 31 2027. Note that it does not matter when during the year the Member pays. In the example, even if the Member pays later in 2026 — months after the due date of February 1 — the full year dues are still owed. This is to prevent existing Members from delaying their payment in order to not pay full-year dues.

For recent past Members, if they rejoin ILDA they pay full membership dues no matter when in the year they renew or rejoin. "Recent past Members" means if a company or person was an ILDA Member in any of the three years immediately preceding the current membership year. (For example, if you were a Member in 2022, and you wanted to rejoin during 2025, you would pay full price. This is because you were a member during one of the three years immediately preceding 2025 (e.g., 2022, 2023 and 2024). In 2026 you will have been out of ILDA for four years, so you can join as a "new" member and be eligible for any applicable mid-year discount.)