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Hard decision for me. There was the nice note left on the front door. There was the moment looking out the front window to see the cars lined up 4 across pointing directly at the house (we live on a cul-de-sac) with their parking lights on (looked like 4 spaceships from Close Encounters of the third kind). Cars jockying for position in front of the house. Spying on the cars from the garage window and listening to their enjoyment of our lights... Lot's of thumbs up and "Wow, great job"'s. Co workers telling me that when they came by, there were 8 cars waiting in line to watch.

But the best for me was the night I was sitting in our kids room (at the front of the house) and hearing our show playing loudly outside. We did the FM transmitter thing but also had a speaker on the front porch at a low volume for walkups. I thought for sure somehow the volume accidentaly got turned up to max. Checked the volume and it was set to normal though. What the heck was happening? So I opened up the front door and boom. A big huge long black Hummer Limo was parked sideways the entire length of the cul-de-sac with about 12 people standing watching the show.

They were blasting their radio with our station. I was just kind of stunned, waved at them and yelled to the wife and kids, "Uhhh, guys... You should come see this".. lol

Stinks that this is all over with now until 2007.

How about you guys/gals. Share some stories like mine will ya?

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I'd have to say it's it's been seeing and hearing the children enjoying the show.

If I or my wife can hear the kids singing along to the music from the inside of the house, we usually go out and give them all Candy Canes.

A few times we've seen parents dancing with their kids to the music as well. That's really been neat as I'm sure it's a "good memory" that will be burned into both the child's and parent's memory for a long time.



-Chris

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I love to also "spy" by peeking through the window or standing somewhere where they can not see me and hearing their comments. It is a great feeling to see people so excited and happy.

I felt like a kid though when everything was hooked up and I played it for the first time. This was my first year and I spent a ton of time and work getting it running and standing back and just watching it run was like standing on top of Everest. I watched it for a few minutes and then ran in the house to grab my wife and her parents. I felt like Clark Griswold with the whole family out there watching it run for the first time. It was the start of a new Tradition!

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The first time my youngest daughter noticed people outside watching our display, she said "we should take them some hot cocoa or something". My wife looked out the front window to see who it was, and the car drove away. :shock:

From that night on, everytime we saw someone parked outside, one of us would call out "hot cocoa, hot cocoa - don't scare 'em away this time, mom!" :laughing:

Those are some memories we'll never forget, and wouldn't have happened without LOR.

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Mine was a slightly differant aspect. My show was in an amusement park. My show was in a circular area about 200' in diameter. My most memorable experience was starting the show and looking around and seeing close to 1000 people standing totally still watching the show. I had kids and teens dancing to the music. And not to mention the applause at the end of the show.

My second most memorable experience was the first night I got everything finally all set up and was running the show for the first time in the dark with the park closed. 22 concert sized speakers, 9-8' long sub-woofers and 16,000 watts of amplifiers. I found myself wandering around the circle conducting the trees and bushes.

I've already been told by my park manager that I didn't order enough controllers for the first time. He wants Much much more next year.. :shock: (40,000+ bulbs, 64 channels and a crazy electrician that wants to tie everthing in the park into a LOR controller)

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I started my display because of the other one in town that I absolutely loved..and it had become sort of a tradition for us to visit it each year since we discovered it. My goal was to hopefully start a tradition with my display.

When I saw this guestbook entry on my display's website, I smiled and I knew I did something right.

"Our daughter just took us to see your light show. What a treat! Thanks for the new holiday tradition. We'll be sure to visit again next year."

(and of course all the other guestbook entries made me so happy too!)

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Almost everynight when my husband was going to unplug some of our inflatables from the yard and the show had already turned off....a car or two would pull up to see the show.....Then my husband would feel bad that the show was off. I swear it happend all the time....It was funny...

I also liked hearing people clap after they liked certain songs......We could hear them in the house... Im gonna miss having my lights up...

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My poster child is also from our guest book:

"After viewing the lights last night our 18 month old is your biggest new fan! He woke up this morning and said "walk lights lights snow". Thank you for creating such a wonderful example of the Christmas spirit. We'll see you every evening on our walk! We love it!!!!!"

Almost every night I stand out front and talk with our visitors. We have families come from every continent on earth (seems like every country) to vacation and visit in Newport Beach. This seasons foot traffic count, is between 12,000 to 13, 000 individuals (car viewers are not counted). It is extremely hard to see a face that is at a minimum without a BIG smile.

We use LightORama and two snow machines mounted on the roof for that "Over The Top" eye popper effect in addition to the motifs and regular animation in the display.

The topper came two nights ago when two ladies walked up. After a minute one lady said she was the head Concierge for the five Marriott Hotels in the area and the Marriotts are all directing visitors to our house because of the personal touch.

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I guess the best that I had this year was when I saw a bus full of residents from a local assisted living center pull up and watch the show. It was a great feeling that the older kids were able to enjoy the show too.

Mike

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Boy, after reading the above comments ... they all sound so familiar, and I could echo similar stories from my end.

But this year's display will be the year my Z-Tree died and was brought back to life, and my "best LOR experience" has to be the response that that generated from friends, family, and passersby. The feedback I received during and after it happened was phenominal, in some cases emotional, in every case deeply appreciated.

These silly lights blinking, fading and dancing to the music have this overwhelming effect on people. I used to think that when I would finally get the show up, that it would be my turn to sit outside and watch it -- just like my audience. But, perhaps not so suprisingly to the PC-folks, I end up watching the people watching my display.

LOR and other systems like it allow us to give our sense of wonder, humor, and imagination that surrounds this season to others in a thoroughly unique and touching way.

You all owe yourselves a big thanks for the gift you have given away to thousands upon thousands.

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This was my first year and although I did a lot of planning and I did not have any "trial" runs. I just got it all set up and set the scheduler to start at 6:00 PM on Thanksgiving night. All my kids were home, my sister and brother in law and my Dad, we were all standing outside across the road, my pickup was parked there to hear the music. It all started up on cue and run perfectly. My two year old grand daughter was mesmerized by the lights. What a great feeling of accomplishment that it all worked and everyone thought it was great. All through the season I got many compliments and thanks for putting on a display for our little town and area. Everyone is looking forward to what I come up with next year. Plans are already made and I am going to double up my channels from 48 to 96. I too hate to see it all end, just few more days till New Years and then its time to start programing new songs for next year!

Wishing everyone a Blessed and Happy New Year!

James & Gloria Graham
Chillicothe, Texas

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First year and I went small to test everything out. Everything worked great! My family thought it was real cool and encouraged me to continue and expand. My wife even wrapped a box for Christmas giving me half the money for another box! (she loves me!) I will probably use that for a new FM transmitter, the Belkin just was too weak in my area. Next year, I will expand my play list, add to the static display, add some cut outs (Charlie Brown Christmas theme), and reduce my C9's to C7's to save a little power.

Thanks to all who help!

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This is our first year with LOR and we decided to raise money for the local children's hospital. As of tonight we have brought in over $5500.00. WOW!!! The people in our area love the show and love a good cause.



Shawn

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Only a small display this year (14,500 bulbs, 96 channels) with a huge reaction. People even came from out of state. Media coverage was nuts (nation wide coverage). People cheering at the end of Sarajevo. Cars lined up 1-2 blocks in 3 directions. Many nice thank you cards. Santa, Mrs. Clause and an elf handing out close to 1000 candy canes in 6 hours. Handed out a ton of free DVDs of the show. At least 11 different busses and a limo have been by, some multiple times. It just feels good to make this many people happy.

When we set this up we had no clue what we were in for...

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I have to say I have lots of great memories from my first year with LOR this year:
The first was before the show even got started or played. I was putting my "Tune To" Sign out in the yard and had it all hooked up and as I was walking back up the driveway to get some more lights i heard a couple walk by the house walking their dog.
The man said, "Right on..." and
the woman walking with him said, "Now what has he done?" ((The he referring to me))
The man said, "Do you remember that clip on the net last year where he had his house timed to music..."
The woman said, "Yeah"
Man said, "well that's what this guy has done..."

It was flattering that people knew what that meant even before it got started.

Not to mention the local media coverage, both TV stations in town did a piece on our display and we even ended up on the top of the Front page in the Local newspaper and they did a whole story on us on the front page of the B section in the paper.

I still like looking out and seeing reems of traffic, and seeing peoples faces as they listen to the music and watch the lights. The best night was 2 mini busses and 2 limos in one evening. One of my neighbors already wants in on the sequencing so perhaps it might be another neighborhood of sequenced lights....stay tuned as it were.


Merry Christmas and thanks to everybody at LIGHTORAMA for making this the most memorable christmas for me and to Planetchristmas users for helping me along the way.

-Evan

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The most memorable thing for me, besides the media coverage and visitor compliments was that fact that it brough my wife and I closer together. We have been married for almost 22 years and have always had different hobbies. She likes to decorate the house both inside and out and I like computers and technology. Because of this LOR experience, we worked closely together on something fun for the first time in many years.

A big thanks to Light-O-Rama for a wonderful product.

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My moment came last night. I let the display run late so I could try to video tape the display.

It was approaching midnight and a car drove up, lights on, engine idling and I stopped the tape.

The driver drove out and raved about how cool the display was, the lights, the cars, the whole experience. (His favorite song? Wizards in Winter). Anyway, he had a friend in the car with him from Virginia and they both went on and on about the lights.

I had reservations about the traffic, about WIW, but when he told me it was his favorite song, then I knew I did the right thing.

Worst moment? We have a song (for the kids) that talks about flatulence in Santa's Lap. We were talking to a friend when an out of county car with two blue haired ladys drove by. The song that was playing was "the song". They drove a circle around the cul-de-sac and kept on going. Maybe it was the song. I felt bad about it until the kids in the back seat of our friends car were singing the lyrics without missing a beat.

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