Santa Claus Lane 2017 Visualizer Preview

[scodavis]

Hello everyone,

In addition to doing my own display, I am also lead programmer for Santa Claus Lane, run by Deb and Terry Toews here in Clovis, California.  I have just finished the first draft of the 2017 visualizer for the display, which will include 38 houses, somewhere just over 1,700 Light-O-Rama standard channels, and as of right now we are estimated to have over 250,000 LED lights.  Not pictured in the visualizer is their CCR tree, upgraded for 2017 to have 24 ribbons (up from 12).

The Pic Link:  Visualizer Preview Picture

And a quick tour:

• Every home has individually-controlled upper and lower eaves (shown as the straight lines), decorated with RWBG C6 super strings.
• Every home has at least six mini trees (shown as small circles), made with tomato cages and 100 lights each of RWBG M6 super strings.  House 3116 (control house) has 16 trees, and 3126 has 8.
• House 3166 may have two singing snowmen - one male, one female.
• House 3146 has a large tree decorated with five sets of M6-100 super strings (20 channels total).
• House 3166, the main control house, has many special features:
  • Four "star sticks", each with 8 segments going up, and a three-part star on top.  White only.
  • A 64-channel mega tree that is over 25 feet tall, with 16 channels of each color RWBG, and a white one-channel star on top.  A channel of strobes (not shown) is also on the mega tree.
  • A 3-channel "Bethlehem Star" that goes on their roof.  White lights.
  • Eight 8-segment leaping arches.  White lights.
  • Four singing Christmas trees.  This year we are adding one channel on each to make it female as needed, and another channel (not shown) will turn on multi lights inside the tree to make it look lit like a Christmas tree on songs where the trees are not being used for singing.

We are really, really excited about how large the display is going to get this year.  If you have any questions, please post them - Deb and I are happy to answer!  Enjoy!

-Scott

[k6ccc]

Impressive!  Most Impressive!

 

[DevMike]

Awesomesauce!

[B.Y.R.G.]

From the sounds of it you will need a small army just to decorate all the houses!  Is there like a basic "buy in" price for a house to become part of this madness?  What I mean is the initial cost of controllers and lights...etc.  The amount of time involved you have to have one of those Hermione Time Turner watches to get this accomplished....heh!

[scodavis]

Thank you BYRG -

Because of the size of the display and the need to make sure everything is organized, Santa Claus Lane operates as an organized nonprofit known as Clovis Festival of Lights.  To keep the cost to each individual homeowner down, the controllers, mini trees, and ELL units are owned and paid for by the organization.  Each individual homeowner is only responsible for buying the lights for their eaves, which comes to about $250-$350 depending on the house model.  Each homeowner typically hangs their own house lights, but all of the controller hookup is done by Terry and a couple other neighbors as they know the channel configuration.  You are right that there is a lot of time involved - the lights have to go up early because we do ground- and air-based filming of the display prior to opening night.

Last year I did about half of their programming to help take the stress off of them - this year I will be doing almost all of the programming.  Here is an example of what the display looked like last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKOa9mLvd2I

It really is quite the production - we estimate over 7,000 people came out on opening night alone.  If you live anywhere close, it's definitely worth a trip to see.

Thank you again!

-Scott

[dibblejr]

Yet another awesome display of the Holiday Spirit!

JR

[B.Y.R.G.]

Interesting information and I could see how the show is growing since the initial outlay by the homeowner is very reasonable.  It's just insane thinking about the whole coordination aspect of this endeavor, amount of time involved and not to mention dealing with all those folks in the homes you are decorating.......brutal!  It sounds awesome and look forward to seeing videos of it.  Now let's see, at this exponential rate of homes jumping on the bandwagon.  I predict the whole town of Clovis will be the first WHOLE town display in 5 years....hahah!

[Mega Arch]

1 hour ago, scodavis said:

Thank you BYRG -

Because of the size of the display and the need to make sure everything is organized, Santa Claus Lane operates as an organized nonprofit known as Clovis Festival of Lights.  To keep the cost to each individual homeowner down, the controllers, mini trees, and ELL units are owned and paid for by the organization.  Each individual homeowner is only responsible for buying the lights for their eaves, which comes to about $250-$350 depending on the house model.  Each homeowner typically hangs their own house lights, but all of the controller hookup is done by Terry and a couple other neighbors as they know the channel configuration.  You are right that there is a lot of time involved - the lights have to go up early because we do ground- and air-based filming of the display prior to opening night.

Last year I did about half of their programming to help take the stress off of them - this year I will be doing almost all of the programming.  Here is an example of what the display looked like last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKOa9mLvd2I

It really is quite the production - we estimate over 7,000 people came out on opening night alone.  If you live anywhere close, it's definitely worth a trip to see.

Thank you again!

-Scott

yeah - real good stuff here. enjoyed watching it during the season. you do a great job sequencing Scott. was fun to watch again now.

[Mega Arch]

52 minutes ago, B.Y.R.G. said:

Interesting information and I could see how the show is growing since the initial outlay by the homeowner is very reasonable.  It's just insane thinking about the whole coordination aspect of this endeavor, amount of time involved and not to mention dealing with all those folks in the homes you are decorating.......brutal!  It sounds awesome and look forward to seeing videos of it.  Now let's see, at this exponential rate of homes jumping on the bandwagon.  I predict the whole town of Clovis will be the first WHOLE town display in 5 years....hahah!

& with that - I predict LOR's biggest customer in 5 years too!

 

[scodavis]

@B.Y.R.G. Let's not think too big - don't you think we should start with *just* a single city block first?  :-)

@Mega Arch Thank you very much for your kind comments.  I love sequencing and I really appreciate it.

[TheDucks]

OK, I will ask

How are these all linked?  That is a lot of driveways that CAT5 needs to cross, let alone the other side of the street

[scodavis]

2 minutes ago, TheDucks said:

OK, I will ask

How are these all linked?  That is a lot of driveways that CAT5 needs to cross, let alone the other side of the street

Excellent question.  There are a total of five networks - one for each side of the street.  The houses are linked through ELL units.  In cases where it must cross to the northern street, we actually will use a combination of ELL units and Controllers to bridge the gaps.  For example, to get from the control house (3116) to the north side of the top street on the map, we will have ELL unit on south side, to ELL unit on North side, to dummy controller through backyards, to another dummy controller, to another ELL unit which broadcasts to the other street.

-Scott

[debtoews]

On 2/3/2017 at 10:40 AM, Mega Arch said:

& with that - I predict LOR's biggest customer in 5 years too!

 

Mega, Mega, Mega....so to give you an insight- I just ordered 50 controllers, 30 ELLS and 14 CCR's....I think they like me at LOR now  :-)

[Mega Arch]

7 hours ago, debtoews said:

...I think they like me at LOR now  :-)

No Deb, LOR loves you. People who spend big bucks, especially when they're not having a sale - well, LOR Gold Membership to say the very least. 

[debtoews]

On 2/10/2017 at 5:23 AM, Mega Arch said:

No Deb, LOR loves you. People who spend big bucks, especially when they're not having a sale - well, LOR Gold Membership to say the very least. 

Hahaha..GOLD???  Not even...I have the DIAMOND membership!  lol

[OzAz]

I struggle to sequence 1 house, let alone a whole Street!
Awesome effort

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

[Stevem]

Does anyone have a copy of a Holiday Cor singing Christmas tree Prop/Fixture template for LOR Visualizer that you could send me?

Edited April 11, 2017 by Stevem

[dibblejr]

57 minutes ago, Stevem said:

Does anyone have a copy of a Holiday Cor singing Christmas tree Prop/Fixture template for LOR Visualizer that you could send me?

There is another thread asking for the exact same thing and Bill P shared it.

JR

[dibblejr]

 

[Stevem]

Dibblejr - I am new to this forum and can't seem to find the thread you mentioned from Bill P. Can you help me?

[dibblejr]

Just now, Stevem said:

Dibblejr - I am new to this forum and can't seem to find the thread you mentioned from Bill P. Can you help me?

Click on the link above with the picture of the pick up truck it will take you there. Just put your email there and politely ask for the file and or private message my friend Bill.

JR

[ChrisJW]

Dibblejr - I am new to this forum and can't seem to find the thread you mentioned from Bill P. Can you help me?

This is the thread you're looking for;
http://forums.lightorama.com/index.php?/topic/43254-Looking-for-Faces-and-Tree


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[ChrisJW]

Excellent question.  There are a total of five networks - one for each side of the street.  The houses are linked through ELL units.  In cases where it must cross to the northern street, we actually will use a combination of ELL units and Controllers to bridge the gaps.  For example, to get from the control house (3116) to the north side of the top street on the map, we will have ELL unit on south side, to ELL unit on North side, to dummy controller through backyards, to another dummy controller, to another ELL unit which broadcasts to the other street.
-Scott

Exceptional! I've heard of your show, never had the opportunity to see it in person. Look forward to someday.
How long have you been working on this project? How did you get the neighbors to get involved? For the past couple of years it seems that I've been shaming mine to at least some have begun to throw up a few strings on their roof line.

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[scodavis]

33 minutes ago, ChrisJW said:

Exceptional! I've heard of your show, never had the opportunity to see it in person. Look forward to someday.
How long have you been working on this project? How did you get the neighbors to get involved? For the past couple of years it seems that I've been shaming mine to at least some have begun to throw up a few strings on their roof line.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk
 

Hi Chris,

@debtoews and Terry Toews had been doing the animated display on their house for several years when their next door neighbor wanted to join in.  They then did both houses for a year (I believe), and after that season were trying to decide what to add to their display.  Instead of adding more lights to their house, they decided to try to add more houses, and contacted all the remaining houses (there are 16 total) on their street to have a meeting.  About half of the remaining homes signed up immediately, and the remaining neighbors signed up within a couple weeks.  I think the last ones to join did so because they didn't want to be the only house out of 16 that wasn't lit!  The 2015 and 2016 displays were done on these 16 houses.

Before the 2016 season, residents on a different street contacted Deb and Terry and wanted to join as well.  They became the "ambassadors" of the other street and several meetings were held.  Long story short, between Norwich, Maine, and Indianapolis there are a total of 38 houses and 34 homes will be lit (some people didn't want to participate).  I'm doing the programming based on 38 houses just in case the non-participants decide later they want in.  Lights have been ordered for all homes just in case.

Coming from an inside perspective, I will tell you that it isn't without drama - nothing involving this many people is - but the end result is absolutely amazing to see in person.  If you live anywhere close to the Clovis/Fresno, CA area, it's worth seeing.  You're also welcome to come see the display on my house - this is my second year and I'll be running 195 channels and somewhere around 17,000 lights.

Thanks for the comment!

-Scott

[debtoews]

On 2/10/2017 at 5:23 AM, Mega Arch said:

Please be advised that Scott Davis is no longer associated with Santa Claus Lane.  

Please address any questions to myself or private message me- thanks