Song Lenghts,

[Terry Hurrle]

I am doing this for the first year. What advice do you have for song length, number of songs in a show and recommended number of different shows for the the display. Some songs just seem to go over three minutes but don't sound right if you edit them down. These are usually the ones with vocal in them. It also seems like
if you just do one show with 5 songs visitors would get bored coming back. Ideas?
Old Man in Idaho

[jimswinder]

Hey Terry...

So much of it is what your preference is and how much time you want to devote to sequencing.

Last year I started with just one show of about 8 songs that lasted about 20 minutes, but added about 3 more songs before the end of the season, so had about a full 1/2 hour...which repeated about 8 to 10 times EVERY night.

Do people get bored with it? I don't think so. I had LOTS of families that would come by several times a week and sit through the whole show at least once (longer if they were waiting for their favorite song). I think a lot of it is that your eyes just can't take it all in, in just on sitting.

But this year I am going to do a lot more (if I don't run out of time) and do something along the lines that George Simmons does. One show will be more traditional Christmas Songs (which will run during the weekdays) but then on the weekends I want to add about three other shows...one with Classical Rock Songs, one with Techno Dance Songs and one with more up to date Christmas Songs (with some "comedic" Christmas Songs) with each lasting about 1/2 hour. So I am looking at probably sequencing up to 30 different songs!! (plus another 10 -15 songs for something special I am working on!!)

Bottom line, and I think most on here would agree, do the songs that you like. It ain't no fun listening to a song you don't like a few hundred times as you are sequencing it!! LOL

As Kevin Costner once said... "Sequence it, and they will not only come, but they will enjoy it".

[Randy]

Hi Terry,

What works for us is to edit all songs down to roughly 2 minutes, give or take. This can usually be accomplished by editing out a verse, etc. I've gotten pretty good with the sound editor! That makes it easier to program a song and it seems to go better with the audience. Our first year included a couple of 5 minutes songs and I could see that it was too long (and all that time programming!)

We run the same show every night, and it takes 35-40 minutes to cycle through all the songs and announcements one time. Most visitors seem to stay about 15-20 minutes, so people can come back again and see different stuff...

It's probably a matter of personal preference. I've seen people describe running a different show on certain nights, but to each their own. I wouldn't want to tell someone who drove all the way over here that the song they want to see plays "tomorrow night" or "on the weekend"...

Another thing we do is have a guest book for people to sign and a handout nearby that contains the play list. People like that as they can see what's coming next. Our handout is available on the front page of our website if you want to check it out...

www.belardolights.com

Randy

[Terry Hurrle]

Jim, Randy,
Thanks for the quick replies. Not sure how many songs this year being my first year. I am working on three right now that I had to redo because at first it was 16 channels then 32 and when the sale went off I wound up with 48. Found it was easier for me to just start from scratch instead of trying to add in the other channels. I had to redo the lay out about four times because I kept moving the channels around to get other elements in like more arches, a mega tree etc. Got it down pretty good and is shaping up. I have picked some easy songs and tackling some hard ones.

Randy, Thanks for the sharing of your hand out. I was trying to come up with an idea because I am doing a drive for the food bank and a local charity. having something for the people to take will help both events. If they don't give the first visit then they will have the thought in their head and probably come back. I do have a brother who is editor of the local paper so the media coverage is always here. It seems that in late October each year when I do my decorating a mysterious picture of me on the roof pops up in the paper with a story. I used to have a display with about 20 inflatables, several wire frames and about 15,000 lights. I stumbles onto a video of computerized lighting and was hooked. Sold the inflatables on ebay and had enough to get the three controllers at the sale.

I spend most of my free time working on sequencing. Still have a wife too. She enjoys the results of the time I put in so I am not in the dog house to often. I stay away from the computer on the weekends so she does get some of my time. Since I am taking her to Maui for our anniversary this year she is forgiving to my new obsession.
Terry

[Surfing4Dough]

I agree that the songs that are about 2 minutes or less seem to work best. Longer than that gets too old. I noticed that that is when people would tend to leave, and I know during my own watching that I felt the same feelings. People will hang in there waiting to see what comes next, but gets too long after a certain point. Last year was my first year too. I set a goal that I had to have at least 4 shows in order to have a show. Once I passed that point, the pressure was off, because I knew I had the bare minimum to at least have a show. During the last month before Thanksgiving night light up I added an additional 3 songs, so started with 7 and had a few www.thedementedelf.com voiceovers too. Show started at 20 minutes. Don't forget that you can still add new songs after you are all set up and running. Everything is done at that point so all there is to do is sequence again. I added 1 more song mid-December, so totaled about 22 minutes. I am glad I did this, since it made me realize that I will intentionally hold a couple songs to add mid-December every year since that helped "change it up" a little. This is probably mostly for myself/my family, since it gave me something new to look forward to watching. A visitor probably won't get bored with the same show no matter how much they watch it, since it will never come close to how many times you see the show (since you live there, and before that you lived at your computer sequencing the same song for hours and hours).

[jimswinder]

Terry Hurrle wrote:

Since I am taking her to Maui for our anniversary this year she is forgiving to my new obsession.
Terry

I hear Maui has some great beaches to do sequencing on... :shock:

[George Simmons]

jimswinder wrote:

I hear Maui has some great beaches to do sequencing on... :shock:

They also have a volcano that you can ride a bike down - one of the ten funnest things I've done in my life and something I'd recommend to anyone...

[jim6918]

I agonized over the show length issue last year for no reason as it turns out. I put together four shows abut 18 minutes in length with slightly different songs that ran on consecutive nights. I had some "anchor sequences" that were in every show. In my announcement, I told people to return often as the show changed. I tried hard to have a beginning and an ending to each show, but the fact of the matter is, people came and went when ever it suited them. I could just have easily put every sequence I had in one show, and had played it over and over randomly with about the same result. I wouldn't worry about it too much the first year. Just do what feels right and remember that you can make quick changes during the day to what doesn't work.

To answer your question about song length, I didn't try to edit any songs to shorten. That is still a little beyond my ambitions. To be honest the one song that I have that goes on way too long is the Linus and Lucy full version. I wish there was a good way to shorten it, but haven't figured it out yet if there is. I so dislike how long it goes on that I might cut it from the show entirely.