Need a LOR veteran opinion on song quantity

[Bizywk]

Our intent with a light show, beyond being able to play with the toys of course, is to make sure the neighbors and family have a great holiday, make wonderful memories, and have a lot of fun along the way.  I've noticed that some of the better displays seem to attract a LOT of attention and sometimes high rates of traffic to their neighborhods which can lead to rubing the neighbors a bit by inconsiderate spectators blocking driveways, honking, littering and even driving up on the curbs into yards, etc.

 

My concern is that we dont have any automated displays that I can find in the vicinity, we're on the corner of our housing addition near a high school and we have a direct line of sight from a nearby well traveled county road so even with a poor first year newbie display, we have the potential for a big draw - just for the novelty of it all.

 

What is the optimum number of songs veterans have found that achieves a balance of enjoyment and moves traffic along?   Given that most songs are about 4-5min long, is three songs per show a good amount meaning we should plan on perhaps 3 shows per hour from about 6:30-9:30pm?

 

Please advise.  Thanks in advance for your reponses.

Edited March 21, 2013 by Bizywk

[George Simmons]

First of all, I wouldn't worry about moving people along until you determine you do indeed have a traffic problem.

As for the number of songs, that all depends on how determined you are and how quickly you can sequence. I routinely use between 50-60 songs per season. If your sequencing is good, people will usually stay until they hear the same songs again. If your sequencing is crappy, they'll move along usually during the second or third song they see.

My advice regarding song length is not to use those 4-5 minute songs until you're convinced that your sequencing will keep someone entertained that long. I think you should select (or edit down) songs that are two or maybe two and a half minutes.

I loop my shows all evening long, rather than trying to schedule them to begin and end at a specific time. Your viewers won't know or even care what time your shows are scheduled for. They'll come by when they feel like it. If they drive by and see no action, they'll keep on going. If they see action, they'll keep watching until they get bored.

[ItsMeBobO]

Welcome Bizywk.   You may get a crowd on some nights and be quiet on others.   The two weekends before Christmas seem to be the busiest here. 

There may be nights you are wishing you had more traffic.  Most people are very nice and do move along if they see cars waiting to get closer.

 

You may find that having only three songs will get the traffic to move along.     That is a short loop show which may not bring repeat guests.   I think more and shorter will be better.  Then people will recall a favorite and come back and wait for it to play.       Not everyone has a defined 'show' with a start and end and a pause.   Drive by cars dont know anything about that and will come in the middle. Then at the end, now knowing they missed the beginning, will wait through the break to the next show.    Just playing them in a loop with no pause will keep the crowd moving.  

 

My lights are lit before dark until late every night with no pauses.  This allows people to come at odd hours and spreads out my crowd instead of bottle necking them into certain hours.  If a car is here, they are watching and not waiting.  Last year I had my request show playing from midnight to 6am.  No neighbor complaints and had a lot of 2 or 3 am visitors.     So my suggestion is focus on making a great show and then if traffic is overwhelming you can make some changes. 

[Bizywk]

Great comments guys.  thanks.   I'm an engineer, maybe its just the control freak in my that was getting concerned over nothing.   I hadn't thought about truncating or even creating medley songs before now.  It could help to punch things up a bit.   

 

BobO, you caught me off guard with the 2-3am shutdown concept.  We've always had the timers for our dumb displays quiet things down about ten out of respect for the neighbors and our electric bill, but I'll rethink that old family rule as a visitor initiative.  Tks guys.

[PaulXmas]

5 minutes might be too long.

For me... weekends are the busiest.

I had about 20 songs. I created a show with all the songs then another one with the best five.

I would run the short one only if there was a lot of traffic.

Keep an eye on things so they don't get out of hand.

I had to shut off the lights because some bone head stopped his big 4X4 on the street once he moved the show continued.

[Max-Paul]

Even though I live in a real rural area. I too believe in shutting down my display at 9 on week days and 10 then 11 in the last week before Christmas during the weekends. Remember on thing, blinking lights actually draw less power than a static display.

[ItsMeBobO]

My set up is by request via smart phone.   Overnight this message repeats with just the center incans on.  The regular songs are not playing.   If someone requests a song it will play.  

http://itsmebob.com/Christmas/2012/WakeUp2012.wmv

[Max-Paul]

Ah yes the phone request thing. Thought you where saying that you had an active show up to 3AM.

[TonyD]

My set up is by request via smart phone.   Overnight this message repeats with just the center incans on.  The regular songs are not playing.   If someone requests a song it will play.  

http://itsmebob.com/Christmas/2012/WakeUp2012.wmv

 

Dang that's pretty cool. I suppose you've explained how you do it all in one of your How-to's?

[plasmadrive]

I started out with 7 songs this last season.  The traffic got to be an issue with people sitting and watching for the entire show.. so I dropped it down to 4 songs.  That really helped with the traffic issues..   This year.. I think a 4 song rotation is all I am going to do.  I think I will rotate the song set every few days.

[Herbaclaus]

I need up with about 14-15 good well sequenced songs. I run 7-8 per show and added/pulled songs every 4-5 days and mixed the order so repeat people heard 2-4 new songs sometimes. Kept my 2-3 hall of fame songs always in there. Hall of fame was totally based on sequence quality plus kids liked it.

[Bizywk]

Great input guys - I truly appreciate the help provided from each of you in this thread.

 

BobO - you're my new HERO!  I've been studying this for about two years, and have not come across anything on this feature.  I'm starting from scratch this year with an aggressive plan to program all our sequences for Halloween and Christmas, all new props for both holidays, aquire and set up 64chan wiring, plus DIY DMX for dumb strips and floods, plus DIY smart LED strips, so this year we just can't add another thing, but I would LOVE to try to replicate your on-demand feature next year.

 

That solution would allow us to keep the house rule of shutting off early ~ 10pm and still provide the opportunity for later visitors with the least amount of rub to our neighbors.

Max-Paul, we discontinued all our incandescents this year so I'm pretty excited about the increase in light longevity and drop in our anticipated electric bill now that LEDs have come along into our display. It cost us a bunch this year, but at least we can try to justify the the incandescent replacement cost to ourselves by saying that we can amortize the cost over several more years of service for LEDs vs incandescents, will save a lot of time not fiddling with one burned out bulb, and at a fraction of the electric bill!

Plasmadrive, I wondered early on if 7 songs could be a sweet spot to afford a bit of variety with minimal hands on adjustment. I dont know if we can finish 7 Christmas songs with our 2013 agenda. I hope we can make it in time.

 

 

I noticed that California is well represented in this hobby.

[nmonkman]

Once again, I have to Agree with George. At first I was running the show for 30 minutes and I started getting requests for more songs so I bumped it to 1 hour. Well, when it got to the point where I needed to hire flaggers and turn the street into a one way only I thought maybe I should back it down to 30 minutes to keep people moving.

It did not have the desired effect. I noticed that no matter what I tried people would just stay and watch it over and over. On the other hand I get people that will park, walk all the way down the block, watch 1 or 2 songs and then leave. The fact is, if you put on a good show, people are going to stay longer. So I will stick with the flaggers and one way signs. There is no way that I have found to keep people moving if you have a single house display. I have seen some displays that are HUGE where you can drive around for a half hour, but that is a whole different scenario.

Traffic is usually about 150-175 cars a night and the week of Christmas it is anywhere from 600-1000 per night. That doesn't include the 150 or so people that park and stand out front at any given time. Remember, if you build it, they will come.

[nmonkman]

Great comments guys.  thanks.   I'm an engineer, maybe its just the control freak

If you had said you were an Engineer (like me) to begin with, I would have told you it was just the control freak.....LOL