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I have read a few messages here on PC and have noticed that some people Run their shows and then take 15-30 mins or so for "Intermission" and then fire up the show again.
What are the Pros and Cons of running your shows Back to Back compared to having no animation for periods of a time?
When most people drive around looking at Christmas lights they don't really stop and may just slow down and they may happen to drive by when you just have your lights static and not even know how cool your display really is when the show starts 5 mins after they passed your house.
I plan on running my shows Back to Back so people can always see it animated.
Next year I will be animated.. not sure if I will have static time or run back to back..
Having a static intermission is good if you want to give your neighboors a brack.. and it is good if someone that drives by looking at your display has medical problems, etc.. because they might get sick..
Your right about if having static then people might not see how awesome it is.. I will probably be running mine back to back but not totally sure yet..
I think a lot depends where you are located. A lot of people build in the intermissions to allow traffic to clear out, especially those on cul-de-sacs. I live rural, very rural, and on a through street, so I don't foresee a problem here. Mine will just run back to back.
I have mine back to back, with and ending song with narration in it announcing that this is the last song of the show, and the show will repeat until 11pm. This way I avoid the darkness lapse (to cover those people that just happen to drive by at that particular second), and it let's everybody know they already seen it all and they should move on. I still get traffic jams, so it really doesn't matter, it's just the way I do it.
I don't necessarily put on a "show" in so much as I run various songs throughout the night. I don't have a theme, nor does one song rely on the other.
As such, I was able to run all of my sequences each night of the display, except the week before Christmas. That week limited the play list to 2-3 songs per hour. I would change them each hour.
Between songs contained voiceovers with the standard reminders. House would be mostly lit during that time ... with a visual countdown to the next song.
ShiningBright91 wrote: Having a static intermission is good if you want to give your neighboors a brack.. and it is good if someone that drives by looking at your display has medical problems, etc.. because they might get sick..
Huh? You can't control with someone will drive by your display. Planning a 'static' portion for this purpose would not be a good use of resources.
Don wrote: ShiningBright91 wrote: Having a static intermission is good if you want to give your neighboors a brack.. and it is good if someone that drives by looking at your display has medical problems, etc.. because they might get sick..
Huh? You can't control with someone will drive by your display. Planning a 'static' portion for this purpose would not be a good use of resources.
Well, I have a handicape brother and he has medical problems and if he sees too many lights going on and off too fast he will get sick.. so yeah, for us it would be of good use.
I'm just thinking of others.. want the display to be enjoyable and accessible for as many as posible!
My show is 20 minutes, 18 1/2 are animated songs. The remaining minute and half is an interstitial. I thank everyone for watching, tell them the show repeats every 20 minutes, start/stop times, watch out for pedestrians, etc.
We had 27 synchronized songs last year - it took a about 75 minutes to play then it would run again continuously until lights off. A few times I wanted to turn them off when it took family 30 minutes to get up the street, but most of the time traffic came in waves of cars until it got closer to Christmas then it was a constant flow. This year we added voice overs and reminders about parking and the neighbors, otherwise we plan on doing the same, just adding more music and lights of course.
Don wrote: I don't necessarily put on a "show" in so much as I run various songs throughout the night. I don't have a theme, nor does one song rely on the other.
As such, I was able to run all of my sequences each night of the display, except the week before Christmas. That week limited the play list to 2-3 songs per hour. I would change them each hour.
Between songs contained voiceovers with the standard reminders. House would be mostly lit during that time ... with a visual countdown to the next song.
Ditto for me, except I havn't changed the show during the season.
Pros: Traffic keeps flowing. People usually stay for a song or two or three. Some stay longer, some just drive by. I have all the traffic I need and then some, so I don't want to have everyone staying for a full show, which would really back things up (and we're on a through street, not a cul-de-sac).
Cons: I guess it might be to restrictive to those who want to put on a "theatrical" type show, but I don't miss this flexibility.
