Length of show

[dsz071]

This will be my first year using LOR. What is a reasonable length for a show? I want people to stay and watch the whole show without taking up too much time. I'm thinking 30 minutes is a decent length. I should be able to get a pretty good mix with 6-8 songs in that amount of time. Am I close or no? How long do you guys run your shows?

[75redman]

Last year was my first year.  My whole show lasted 21 minutes then repeated.  I noticed people who stopped stayed for the whole show.  This year I will have more songs so I will probably keep the show around the same length and just do multiple shows throughout the week. 

[plasmadrive]

This topic has been brought up before.. you might want to do some searching..  

 

Personally I had to shorten my show because most would stay for the whole thing and the street would plug up badly for too long..

[Ron Boyd]

Mine was about 45 minutes and 20 songs. Most were edited down to around 2 minutes each. I don't have the same problem as Plasma, but folks stayed for the whole show.

I did however, have as many people show up the week of Christmas as I had all month of December the year before. I guess word of mouth is getting around. I'm expecting more this year.

[Orville]

My Halloween show runs just over an hour.  Christmas show runs about 40-45 minutes.   No issues yet and been running the shows for the same length since I started with all this in 2010.  Although not sure if I am having a show this year in 2013.   Trying to work on a smaller version as I had so much going on at the beginning of 2013, just didn't feel like working on sequences or a show.   Still things going on and then going out of town in July for a while, and involved in quite a few community and personal activities, so not sure if I'll even get a small show off the ground in 2013.  So what time I can devote to sequencing, will probably be for a 2014 show.

 

Going to disappoint all my neighbors if there is no display this year, since my first year in 2012 at the new home and neighborhood, everyone loved it and are looking forward to it this year, but might not be able to happen.

 

But like said, my show lengths were over an hour for Halloween {seems to always be my biggest and longest show}, with Christmas being 40-45 minutes or so.   Think I had somewhere between 21-30 songs for Halloween and probably 15-20 for Christmas.  Many edited down to shorten them.

[taybrynn]

It really depends on your location (and traffic potential), and the wow factor of your show, etc.  I would do shorter songs (2-3 each) and just go with a schedule you like and let it repeat.  If you have too much traffic, then so with a shorter program.  I personally have a lot of repeat viewers and many do not stay and watch all the songs, whether I am doing 3 or 13 songs in the schedule.  Some, on the other hand, show up with burgers and milkshakes and watch the entire thing once or twice.

[caniac]

it all depends on location, I run an hour to two hour show BUT no one seems to stay for the whole show (the see something different every time they drive by).  There are a few on here that have to go with a shorter show (20mins) because the traffic issues would be enormous.  Year before last Kevin (aka Cracker) had over 5,000 people and the group LMFAO (plus their camera crew).

[Steven]

Personally I had to shorten my show because most would stay for the whole thing and the street would plug up badly for too long..

I found that if you put one of your popular sequences in 2 places in the show (like the start and the middle), that some people will think the show is repeating when it's really only half way.  Other will watch it again anyway, and then discover the other half of the show.

[Herbaclaus]

I had a decent amount of traffic and found that running a shorter show (20-25 minutes) kept people moving faster. I also changed the show up every 2nd or 3rd night and had a bunch of people remark on how they enjoyed seeing different stuff when they came back.

[David Rise]

My show is about an hour.  Most of my visitors only stay for one or two songs, then they're off to see other lights.  But we have a local website that shows a map of all the decent light shows in the whole county.  So folks drive from one show  to the next trying to see them all in one night.  
I do have people return on different nights to see other songs.

[dsz071]

Mine was about 45 minutes and 20 songs. Most were edited down to around 2 minutes each

If I can be even more nosy, what do you use to edit your music?

Never mind, forgot that I had already downloaded Audacity.

 

Edited June 8, 2013 by dsz071

[Reefrus]

I had a decent amount of traffic and found that running a shorter show (20-25 minutes) kept people moving faster. I also changed the show up every 2nd or 3rd night and had a bunch of people remark on how they enjoyed seeing different stuff when they came back.

I had several shows running but changed up the songs on several nights, I had several people also comment that they saw new things everytime they came by, one person said they drove by every night just to see if I had added or changed anything up that they always noticed something new each time. The best was I had Virtual Reality Santa in the window and one lady told my wife that she bet her husband must really like dressing up as Santa each night. She did not know it was a video.

[bob_moody]

Our show has gotten longer each year and each year we try to add something new. We live a few miles out of town so traffic had never been a problem. We got a write up in a regional magazine last year that really boosted our traffic. Nothing like some of these displays but a real boon for us.

Length of a show is really tricky question. In my opinion make it as long as you can then break it up so you have variety. Utilize announcements every two or three songs to thank people for coming out, wishing them a safe holiday, and gentle reminders about traffic and neighbors.

Build it, and they will come. Even when your 7 miles out of town

Bob

[paralegalnc]

my show ran last year (first year) for 18ish minutes.  ran every half hour so there was about 10 minutes for the traffic to move on... some people would come and leave...but we had alot of repeaters.  I guess that is good. 

[chipwdw]

My Halloween show runs just over an hour.  Christmas show runs about 40-45 minutes.   No issues yet and been running the shows for the same length since I started with all this in 2010.  Although not sure if I am having a show this year in 2013.   Trying to work on a smaller version as I had so much going on at the beginning of 2013, just didn't feel like working on sequences or a show.   Still things going on and then going out of town in July for a while, and involved in quite a few community and personal activities, so not sure if I'll even get a small show off the ground in 2013.  So what time I can devote to sequencing, will probably be for a 2014 show.

 

Going to disappoint all my neighbors if there is no display this year, since my first year in 2012 at the new home and neighborhood, everyone loved it and are looking forward to it this year, but might not be able to happen.

 

But like said, my show lengths were over an hour for Halloween {seems to always be my biggest and longest show}, with Christmas being 40-45 minutes or so.   Think I had somewhere between 21-30 songs for Halloween and probably 15-20 for Christmas.  Many edited down to shorten them.

yep had the same thing kind of in 2010 (my 3rd yr then), i ran the exact same show from the year before. didnt even change the order of the songs!!! literally ran the 2009 show in 2010. you know how many people had a problem with it..big fat 0!!!! except me of course, but most didnt even notice, few asked what was new cause they couldnt figure it out.  i have about the same length show as you, it was about 40 minutes those years, now i'm about 50m - tried taking few songs out, and that i heard about. since then all i have done is taken a slower stuff out and a slower song (Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas) and made it the very last, once a night to close song and of course add few new songs. i took a TSO song out and oh boy did people not like that.so i say, run the show - even if its the same. just my 2cents

[Orville]

yep had the same thing kind of in 2010 (my 3rd yr then), i ran the exact same show from the year before. didnt even change the order of the songs!!! literally ran the 2009 show in 2010. you know how many people had a problem with it..big fat 0!!!! except me of course, but most didnt even notice, few asked what was new cause they couldnt figure it out.  i have about the same length show as you, it was about 40 minutes those years, now i'm about 50m - tried taking few songs out, and that i heard about. since then all i have done is taken a slower stuff out and a slower song (Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas) and made it the very last, once a night to close song and of course add few new songs. i took a TSO song out and oh boy did people not like that.so i say, run the show - even if its the same. just my 2cents

I could have done that, but there is a little glitch in that.  I am one controller down from last year, lawn maintenance when cutting grass hit the enclosure and broke it, channel 5 was already with a bad triac, so I tried repairing it myself and just made things worse, so currently, I only have 4 controllers and 64 channels, unfortunately show was designed with all 5 and 80 channels, so I would still have to take time and modify all those sequences and take a lot of things out of the show.   So that puts a damper on the works so to speak.

 

The broken controller still has 15 working channels, but I'd have to get an enclosure to put it back into since the original one was damaged, and since I prefer all my enclosures to be the same, I'd need to order one from LOR, but currently with medical issues what they are and other debt and things needed to exist in daily life, I just don't have the funds to replace it with a LOR controller enclosure at this time or any enclosure for that matter.  At least not for probably quite a few months now, I was going to try and send in the controller board I messed up trying to replace the Triac myself, but just can't afford to send it in, especially if it would have to be replaced, as I worked in Electronics before I ended up with really bad vision issues, blind in one eye and extremely nearsighted in what vision I have left, anyway, in my opinion the board is not repairable and would require replacing, but being out of warranty, I can't afford the exchange cost at this time.

 

So there probably will not be a show this year in 2013, since I still have to redo every single sequence from 80 channels to 64 and have to figure out what am I going to take out of the display.

 

Believe me, it was a great suggestion and one I had considered, but having lost a controller last year after the end of the display, and all the crap that's gone on since the beginning of 2013, just not really into it at all this year.  Been trying to rework a few items and sequences, but I start and within a few minutes in I either get called off to do something for someone or I just can't get myself immersed into as I did in previous years.

 

I have actually been considering just selling off the stuff and getting completely out of it, and that thought is still in the thinking stages at the moment.

[TheUltimate]

My show was 45 min. last year and no one ever stayed for the whole thing. My neighbor also does a show so it wouldn't work too well for cars to sit out there for two hours anyway. This year I hope to have about an hours worth of music but I'm setting up a voting feature so viewers can vote on the next song from their smart phones. I will be able to track which songs get the most votes and it will help as I plan for the future.

[CSURam]

My show last year was 24 minutes.  Opening, 2 full songs, 30 second commercial, 2 full songs, repeat.  Most visitors stayed for 5 to 10 minutes and then left, only a few of the more dedicated lighting enthusiasts stayed for the full show.  The 20 foot inflatable snowman helped to keep people interested in my show.