Outdoor Decorating

Outdoor Christmas decorating

Living Christmas Tree
Once upon a time, there was a little girl whose father worked on a farm with hardly a tree in sight and about twelve miles from the middle of nowhere. Her family was poor and lived in the farmer’s basement. One Christmas they could not afford a tree, so the father made a board to hold one string of Christmas lights and displayed it on the farmer’s mantle. The little girl and her brother were allowed to go upstairs to the farmer’s living room to sit on the couch and look at the lights as long as they were very,…
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So you think you’re a star?
Have you got the music in you? More specifically, have you got the CHRISTMAS music in you? If you’ve ever dreamed of producing your own CD of Christmas music, wait no longer! Life is too short to sit around and dream. With record companies losing profits every day, now is the time to jump in with both feet and begin your career as an independent recording artist. Especially since there are now so many ways to have your music heard even without the backing of a big record company. As they say at the Nashville Songwriters Association, “It all begins…
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Think like your cellphone
My first year to install an extreme Christmas light display at my home was in 2005. I had to buy all the products, learn a new software program, stumble through installation procedures, install an electrical sub-panel in my garage and make about a hundred trips to Home Depot for electrical supplies. The display was fairly simple and included 45,000 lights, 80 channels of computer control and very few props or tricks. I programmed about eight unedited songs, one after the next much like a collection of songs on any given album. I thought it was really cool and I had…
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Sequencing for a living
In the September issue of PlanetChristmas magazine, you heard from industry experts giving great advice on “Going Pro” with a Christmas lighting business. I’ve been fortunate to meet with many of these people and have learned a great deal from them. Following in those footsteps, I would like to share my industry experiences with you. While there are many aspects of a lighting business, I’d like to focus on sequencing a display that is not your own. Of the many services available the most popular is custom programming of light displays. In my many years of working with synchronized displays,…
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The Rumor Mill
I dressed up as a miniature Hyatt employee and got in free to that re-PLUS event in Louisville on August 1st in Louisville. It wasn’t until the end of the day after I had stacked 200 chairs and filled a dumpster with trash I found out the event was free for everyone. As Homer the elf would say: DOH! To make things even worse, wearing that Hyatt employee uniform meant I couldn’t keep any of the PlanetChristmas bling Chuck was tossing out at every opportunity. Caps, shirts, coffee cups, cookbooks, LED necklaces, ducks, lapel pins. Wow. Where did he get…
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Wireframe tips and tricks
It seems that these days everyone is going to the LED lights. They use so much less electricity and seem to last longer than the old-fashioned incandescent mini-lights. Unfortunately, for long time decorators changing can be costly. In many cases, there’s nothing wrong with incandescent decorations if you give them gentle, loving care. You can expect many more years of life. There are some tricks of the trade for quickly refurbishing those old wire frames that are lit in incandescent lights. The obvious fist thing to do is replace the bulbs on the wire frame. This can be fairly easily…
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Over The Top!
PlanetChristmas started it all with the original Worldwide Decorating Contest and never imagined the number of incredible Christmas displays there were out there. When the 2008 judges saw the first Shadrack display video shot from the other side of an Interstate exit in Knoxville, Tennessee they were dazzled by the sheer size. Then when the judges saw the second video shot in Bristol, Tennessee they couldn’t believe the Glover family had built two independent displays at the same time. They were then astonished to find out each display was controlled by 1,600 light circuits. Finally, when the judges found out…
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Sequencing >1000 channels
I’ve been running around the world the last few months so I didn’t get to write this column in the last edition. Luckily I was able to tell the story about the video of my home Christmas display going viral on the Internet at re-PLUS thanks to Chuck Smith and his generosity, passion and willingness to bring together the serious Christmas decorators. This month I want to go over some of my ideas and issues with starting to program and sequence a 1,000+ channel show required for professional installations. I have been working on several large shows for the 2009…
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Backstage Pass
It’s time to tell a story about life on the road as viewed by a professional in the world of event production. That would be me. “Woke up, got out of bed Dragged a comb across my head” During the last four years, I have spent a few days of my life during the first week of May on the beautiful campus of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. Actually, I do not spend much time on the campus which I hear is beautiful, but rather I spent hours and hours of that week inside the outdoor football stadium…
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Thinking about going pro?
Even with the current economic struggles, there are still entities that want to attract attention and excitement to make their facility noteworthy in the community. A computerized light display (we call them animated lighting shows) is a novel and proven effective way to do this. Attention means visitors, and visitors mean business. Animated Lighting, Inc. has been involved with hundreds of commercial projects over the past decade. Each one is exciting and many times challenging based on a variety of factors. If you’re thinking about tackling a commercial project, I’ve pulled together some hints that should make things easier to…
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