Scheduling Question

[Guest guest]

I have about a 15 minute show that plays every half hour. Music plays inbetween, with all on sequences. The music LOR plays somtimes goes over the start time for the main show, because LOR finishes the sequence it was currently playing. This late start, however, is messing up my conclusion. Since the show somtimes starts 2-3 minutes late, it plays the show, but not the conclusion sequence at the end because the start time sequence has already started.

So, my question is: How do you force LOR to play the last seqence. I am going to try putting it in its own show and schedule it right after the main show, but I wanted to know what you guys thought.

[Guest guest]

I plan on doing something like that next year, but here are my thoughts. Instead of just playing music and running an empty sequence with all on, make musical sequences for the in between show songs (still with all on). This will allow you to write down the time of each song. Now since your show is 15 minutes each half hour, that leaves 15 minutes to fill. Using the times you have written down, figure out the songs where they last about 14.5 minutes, then write in a couple of small filler sequences that have no music, but the lights on. Make these sequences just long enough to bring your total none show songs to 15 minutes (or whatever time you need for your show to start on the half hour. That should eliminate the going over part and get you back on schedule so your last show plays at its scheduled time. That is what I plan on doing for next year, and I am pretty sure it will work. It would look something like this

Show sequence #1 5 minutes

Show sequence #2 6 minutes

Show sequence #3 4 minutes

none show sequence #1 3 minutes

filler sequence #1 5 seconds

none show sequence #2 3 minutes 15 seconds

filler sequence #2 5 seconds

none show sequence #3 4 minutes 20 seconds

filler sequence #3 5 seconds

none show sequence #4 4 minutes 5 seconds

filler sequence #4 5 seconds

Then run your show sequence again. In my head, this is very clear, but trying to explain it may not come out so good, so I really hope this helps.

Chris

[Guest guest]

I had to re-read it about 10 times :shock:, but that's probably because it's late. Anyways, I think I understand what you are saying. The only difference is that I have a pool of 72 songs that could play during that time. Expanding on your idea, I think I will create about 3 shows based on song length. Basically group 4 minute songs in one show, 5 minute songs in another, and 3 minutes in another.

Then, I will schedule them to run after my show is over, the 5 minute show for 5 minutes and so on. To make up for the difference in song lengths, I will use a short 5-second all on animation inbetween each show. That will keep the lights on and everything on schedule.

Any problems in this idea? I'll test it out tomorrow.

BTW: Tonight was my first night running and I saw a car stopped outside for a few minutes. Made me feel really good.

[Guest guest]

Your idea should work also. The main thing is timing everything out so your show starts on time. Hard to tell people when the shows are if they come at different times. I run mine each half hour, then just use X-10 to turn on and off the rest of the lights in my display. Next year I am going to have more of the display lights in my show and will need to schedule it out like I tried to explain. It is labor intensive at first, but the end result will be a better timed show.

As for cars stopping by, we only told the people that we work with about our show which star4ted running on Thanksgiving night. Now we have 8 to 10 cars for each of the 9 shows. I go out and talk to people, and they say they heard about it from someone else, so the word of mouth advertising is working very well. Just sit back and watch your show audience grow.

Chris:waycool: