Surprise google immage...

[-klb-]

I was looking at google maps, "satellite" imagery, and found a surprise.. The images are from the opening day of our 2009 show, plus or minus a day. It is not the 2010 layout in the park, and the stage is set up in the park across the street, which is usually only set up less than 24 hours before show start, and removed, or at minimum closed up, less than 24 hours after.

So, we have a nearly north/south street, with the end of a city block to the right. The south side has the fire station, and the north side is a city park, created by high voltage power line easement. While the fire house face, and roof lines were covered in lights, none of them stand out in the image. You can sort of see the 26 foot tall half mega tree descending from the front gable of the office side of the building, but it is faint, and may not be showing in the jpg. In the park, you can clearly see the row of 20 36 inch tall mini trees, and the back row of elements. For 2008 & 2009, that back row had 4 leaping light arches, 6 10 foot tall vertical poles, and 3 10 foot tall, 2d wire framed trees, with 5 diagonal slices of lights. For 2010, this was reworked to include a 5th arch in the center, and 2 more of the 10 foot tall wire frame trees were built, so there is one behind each arch.

Though with shadows of the trees, it looks like there are more, there are actually 5 trees in the park. Each tree had been trimmed, until the foliage started at least 6, and usually 8 feet from the ground. Each trunk was wrapped in bundles of red, green, and white, on 3 inch spacing for the wraps. The design calls for the bottom 4 feet of trunk to be a separate group of three channels than the top 4 feet of trunk and branches. I don't remember the bulb counts for 2009, but in 2010, the tree tops had a total of 1500 C7 bulbs of each color. For 2010, this is going up to about 2000, or 400 C7 bulbs of each color.

Though you can't tell it in the photo, the cluster of 3 10 foot wire frame trees, is at the front center of a 6 foot tall hill in the park. So even with that one front tree trunk well trimmed, it does block some view angles, but it gives us an additional opportunity. You can barely see a "fan" of greener grass in front of those wire frame trees. That is 32 bundles of red, green, and white incandescents, set up is 16 channels each of red, green, and white. For 2010, that was expanded to 20 channels each of red, green, blue, and white, with three bundles per channel. With one of the strands lined up one foot inside the arches, and the bottom even with the bottom vertical, and one set up identically on the other side, this put the two top ends about 19 feet apart. So the tops of the center bundle of each group were 1 foot apart, and the bottom spread evenly to fill the arc. It lit things up nicely, and the LED version had far less issues with ground fault trips than the incandescent did.

Across the street, back in 2007, the parking lot started about where that one telephone pole stands just a bit south of the cross street, extended east, nearly to the sidewalk, and south as far as the current parking lot entry. This lead for great viewing, parked in the parking lot, directly facing the display. The new lot, you have a few spaces that work well if you back in, and if we place bleachers in those two front spaces to prevent trucks and other large vehicles from parking there and blocking the view. We do put speakers under those bleachers.

The past two years, we have managed to get permission for people to park on the grass, nose up to the sidewalk, like the parking lot used to run, as long as the grass was not too wet. This year, they are considering putting in a kind of concrete paving stone that the grass can grow through, so that the on grass parking can be used even when wet.

For 2010, from Dec 4th, through Jan 3rd, we were running 6PM to 10PM, with 15 minutes of show, looping constantly. Often, parking was full, or nearly full. The traffic counter on the lot reported over 4,000 cars during that period. I wonder how much more we would have had, if the grass hand not been closed a few times due to rain.


Attached files

[jimswinder]

Guess Google needs to start getting some nighttime shots!!!

[Dennis Cherry]

Mine also shows my 2009 display, hard to see with all the trees.