Below you will find questions that we hear from our visitors that have witness our light show:
How many lights are in the display ?
In 2005 our show had 103,000 lights The 2006 show had 136,800 lights . The 2007 light show will more than likely break the 150,000 light barrier.
How much is your power bill ?
PRICELESS ! We keep our electric bill under control. You see a lot of lights but you will only see all on at full brightness only about 16 seconds per hour. We also run a huge portion of the display at 70% of full brightness. Most people can not see the difference, plus we change scenes a number of times to bring interest to different parts of the display.
How much wire do you use to control the display ?
The best we can figure we have almost 6 miles of control and main power feeds.
When do you start planning your display ?
This is on going and we plan year round ! We have actually have plans in place for the next 2 years !
When do you start putting the first lights up ?
October 1st . It takes about 7 weeks to have all the scenes in place and tested. We install all of the aerial effects first and then the ground effects. 2006 display was a huge challemge because of all the bad weather we had. Some of the displays took a lot of damage , but we still met our deadline.
Where do you purchase your displays?
99% of our displays and props are all home made. Check out the DISPLAYS page to see them during the day and night.
Do you leave any of the lights up year round ?
NO
How long does it take to remove the lights ?
Around 3 weeks
How long is each show ?
We like to keep each show around 30 minutes. This seems to keep the traffic rotating pretty well. But then there is a lot of visitors that will stay an hour or even two !
How do you chose your music ?
Music to me is one of the most challenging part of producing a Christmas light show. We try to chose music that is appealing to all age groups, so normally we mix it up a little. We even will use non Christmas music but very carefully, so that it will fit into the show.
When does the light show begin each year and what times ?
Our light show starts the first Sunday after Thanksgiving . We had such a huge demand , to run the show longer, we decided to start at this time instead of our usual December 1st start up date. The show starts at 6pm and ends at 11pm each night. We do cut the volumn to the outdoor speakers after 10pm during the work week.
It must take a huge and fast computer to run such a show. How big is it ?
The light show does not take a lot of horsepower to run the show. For 2005 and 2006 show we use a 1.34GHz computer with 256 Ram ! This computer is dedicated to only run the show. Up to 2005 we only used a 400Ghz without any problems.
The snow machines are great and the kids love them ! Does the computer control it ?
Everything within the show is controlled by the computer including the snow machines, high volicity blowers ect.
We have notice a great smell when the snow machines are running. What causes this ?
IT's BUBBLE BATH !! You read it right ! The regular snow solution proved to be expensive so I started to experiment with several mixes. Certain surfactants does better then others but I believe we have got it down now. We use a small amount of other ingredients to enlarge the flakes. We will use about 5 liters per night and then we reload the machines each day for the upcoming show.
Which display take the longest to install ?
The 16' Mega tree takes all week-end to install. Its is not our largest display, but needs to be installed perfectly. The reason for this is because it is a tree within a tree. It is controlled by 12 channels to give the effects of spinning plus 2 more channels to fire up all the green lights. Total light count for the tree is 9.050.