Backstage

So you're curious and want to know how we did it? You wonder how much our electric bill is?  Well, before we could do anything, we had to do a lot of planning and preperation.  Planning for this year's display actually began in late 2006! By last Christmas we already had a basic plan of what we were going to do with the display this year.  Aside from planning, planning, and more planning it's all simple (yeah right).
 
The Lights:
Our 2007 display has approximately 35,500 lights in six colors (Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, and White). There's no better time to shop for Christmas lights than during the after Christmas and New-Year's sales!  Many lights wind up costing less than 50 cents per box!  To achieve the color-changing effect that our display has, we manually combine six different light strands (one for each color) into a single "superstrand" using a bunch of zip ties (several thousand actually) and time.  Assembling of these superstrands began before the lights began going up.  Despite the low cost of the lights many of them must be replaced every two years (particularly blue) due to fading.  We are planning a gradual switch to the newer LED based lights beginning in 2008 since LEDs last 15 or more years without any fading (and use 1/10th the amount of electricity).  The star on top of our "mega tree" has already been converted to this technology.
 
The Power:
Running all of those lights requires some serious power!  When they are all turned on at once they draw 113 amps of electricity!  Fortunately since we have computer control, they aren't typically all on at once (although there are a few spots in the show that they are for a very brief period of time).  Powering all of our lights requires eight dedicated 20 amp circuits.  For perspective, that is enough to provide power to all of the wall outlets in a typical home.  Getting the power to the lights is also a challange and requires 1.5 miles of extention cords.
 
Computer Control:
With all the lights and power in place comes the real challenge: synchronizing them to music.  Doing so requires a way to interface the lights with a computer, and a way to program the computer with a set of commands to tell the lights what to do (and when to do it). The electronics necessary to make this happen consist of 94 channels of D-Light brand controllers.  The software to control the lights was written entirely by us (we call the program "Aurora").  Each song takes about 10 hours of time to synchronize to music.  The music is transmitted to visitor's FM radios by a low power FM transmitter (FCC part 15 compliant) on an empty FM station.
 
Setting It All Up:
So, with all of that in place, how long does it take to hang all of those lights?  The setup of our 2007 display began on November 1 and took until November 30 to complete (that is a full month).  There were more display elements planned (including a life size nativity) which did not make it into the 2007 display because we ran out of time to complete them.  These items will be included in our 2008 display (the planning for 2008 has already begun).
 
The Mega-Tree:
Of particular interest is our 26 foot tall animated Christmas tree.  First used in 2006, this display element was custom made by us out of plumbing parts just for this display.  The support pole and star were assembled on the ground and then raised into place and anchored by eight steel cables.  Lights were raised onto the tree via parachute cords that were pre-strung through eye bolts while the pole was on the ground.  All of the lights except for the star may be lowered and re-raised on the tree for servicing (replacing dead bulbs, bad sections, etc.).  The mega-tree consists of 14,500 lights.
 
The Voice Of Lights On Logan
He's known as "The Demented Elf" and we hired him to do the voiceovers for the display.
 
So how much is the electric bill?
Because the lights are not always on the bill is far less than you might guess.  It will only cost $30 to run the display for the entire 2007 Christmas season.