Today , searchlights are used in advertising , fairs , festivals and other public events . Their use was once common for movie premieres ; the waving searchlight beams can still be seen as a design element in the logo of the 20th Century Fox movie studio , the Fox television network . The world 's most powerful searchlight today beams from the top of the pyramid-shaped Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas . The beam concentrates about 13,650,000 lumens from 39 7 kW xenon lamps into its beam of about 9,129,000,000 candela . The brightness emanating from the Luxor lamp room is about twice that which emanates from an equal area of the sun 's surface ( about 95,000,000 cd/ft2 versus 45,000,000 cd/ft2 ) . The '' Tribute in Light '' is an art installation that uses two columns of searchlights to represent the former Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in remembrance of the September 11 attacks , produced annually in Lower Manhattan
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
Searchlight