Weekend only shows?

[jrock_at_rons]

My wife informed me that due to our neighbors and traffic in our neighborhood she doesn't want the show to run each and every night (I disagree).  Anywho, to keep the boss happy we decided to compromise and only run the show Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.  

 

Is this common or will we just be throwing everyone off?  Has it been done before? 

 

Obviously in our announcements we'll remind people of the days it does run.  

 

For the non-show days I figured I just come up with a slow moving static animation to move the lights a bit (and just not illuminate the 'tune to' sign).  

 

Thanks. 

 

[Mega Arch]

Sorry to hear the problems.

But understand that you have to please the wife.

I like your animation idea.

Anything is better than a dark show.

[iflights]

I run a shorter time window 7p-10p Monday through Thursday.  Even though it's dark by 5p, I don't start the show until 7p because I don't want to constantly have it in my neighbor's face when they come home from work.  Friday, Saturday, Sunday are totally a different story and I start it earlier and run later.

[Box on Rails]

On week nights I run my Halloween show till 9:00 and then from 9:00 to 10:00 i run a sounds of the night effects loop. it is 9 minutes long with some occasional thunder but mostly night sounds like wind, rain, crickets  and a few howls. Friday and Saturday nights the show runs till 10:00 with the effects loop running till 11:00.  Last night my next door neighbor was out and we talked for a while and he said he loves the show and might want to get involved next year. That would be sweet, 2 houses. can't wait. 

. 

[portcity_gt]

I started running only fri-sun 8-10, but ended up adding mon-thur 8-9.

[dgrant]

Are we talking Halloween, Christmas or both? Halloween, I run the inflatables each night but the music and so on, not till the Halloween night itself. I ran three sequences last night for the grandkids. As for Christmas, I run each night from Thanksgiving night through New Years, 6Pm to 10Pm. The more people that see the show, the better.

[75redman]

I run mine every day of the week.  To me, I think if I was to only show on the weekends the traffic would be worse.  With it going every night, there are people who like to come during the week when it's not so busy.

[George Simmons]

Can't rightly say I've ever heard of anyone before who only lights up on weekends. 

 

As for me, after spending a year working on my display, I can't even imagine not running it every night.

[1983ss454]

There's a guy near me who only runs 3 shows a night,

Friday Saturday Sunday and it makes it very hectic with traffic

[Don]

You could illuminate the tune to sign on weeknights, if only to have a broadcast running reminding people that shows are on the weekends.

 

I suspect as things move forward, she'll change her mind and want them running all the time.

[BryanZ]

I personally tend to run the show more frequently and limit the weekday times. Even on weekends my shows done by 10:30. I try to respect the neighbors and keep the peace. Otherwise the biggest factor, aside from traffic, is the weather. Seems like people are less likely to head out in inclement weather. If you know it will be storms, etc., set an animation to run. For what a waste it would be if every weekend was filled with lousy weather conditions which are beyond your control.

[PaulXmas]

I think the traffic etc is going to be worse of the weekends.

[jrock_at_rons]

It is only Christmas (for now).

 

Thanks for all the responses.  I'm not too worried about the traffic (yet).  I'm only starting with 32 channels and about 4000 lights.  It's nothing on the scale of what many of you do.

 

My thinking is that once I get it up and running and show the wife how truely awesome it is, the weekend limitation will simply fall by the wayside. 

[jstorms]

I tried it one year to reduce traffic. Pretty much it just made the crowds even larger and crazier on the weekends.

Now I kick it off for friends and family and do a few shows where the neighbors being out there camp chairs. I actually enjoy the more social version than having a line of cars. I also get to do all (most) of my songs vs. just a couple.

[ItsMeBobO]

For the last two years my show plays every hour its dark out of every day.    None of the neighbors have said anything.    There are some cars outside at 2am.  But they dont make any noise as far as I know.   My feeling is this levels out the traffic because people know they can come later and it wont be too late.  

 

[eurbani]

4000 lights, first year, 33 channels. I wouldn't worry too much about traffic. I'm not putting you down, just speaking from experience. My first year was 15,000 and 184 channels and we never had more than a few cars at one time.