I’ve spent much of this year debating if I would do a big light show this season. After much consideration the excitement has built enough for me to commit to building another show this year. We will go live 3 months from today on November 27th, hopefully we will be able to have a light up party with a road hockey game and people in our house again. I really missed not having the light up party last season.
Light up from years past
Keeping warm(ish) 
Watching the show from the street 
Lights go on ’19 
The first few Kids playing hockey, there would be 20+ playing for over 4 hours during the party 
Light up ’18 
Ready to Party
I had been preparing like I would be doing a show, creating a new layout with some new props and converting all of my songs to take advantage of the new layout. This has gone quite well and I now have 51 of 55 converted with 4 left to go and 7 new songs to add. I will have to go back and create some voiceovers for the singing trees on select songs.
Sequence Progress
| 2021 Sequences | ||||
| Current Date | % Complete | % Due Complete | To Convert | To Do |
| 27-Aug-21 | 80.95% | 164.52% | 4 | 11 |
| Ready Run Time | # Complete | Due | To Create | To Do Runtime |
| 2:43:18 | 51 | 31 | 7 | 0:21:54 |
New Songs for 2021
Hopefully I will get the following songs added, the Jackson 5 songs are a priority as they are a request from the kids with the rest hold overs from previous years.
| Kids | Kidnap the Santy Claus – The Nightmare Before Christmas |
| Kids | Making Christmas – The Nightmare Before Christmas |
| Metal | Father Christmas – Chris Jericho and the Christmas Helves |
| Misc | Hey, Come look at my lights – Haymaker Comedy |
| Misc | Christmas Medley – Jackson 5 |
| misc | Some day at Christmas – Jackson 5 |
| Misc | Rudolph – Robbie Williams |
Here is a comparison of the simulation (Right) of this years layout and a video (Left) from last years show, I’ll try and get a better side by side built up in filmora.
The new props I am adding this year are 8 additional north poles to complement the ones I built last year, 4 additional RGB Arches, 8 RGB light domes to line the driveway and pixel Panels for the 3 columns on my upper level. The north poles and arches are just more of a good thing based on props I built last year.
The light domes are a modern interpretation on something I saw and liked back in my teen years in St. Albert. People would use 4L ice cream pails with lights inside them (I think my major inspiration Mr. DiMaio had some of these). My interpretation is an upgrade, I got some large pails (11.4L) from a local ice cream shop and will be adding dumb RGB’s and controllers from HolidayCoro, this is the same configuration used in the north poles.
The Pixel Panels are something I have wanted to do since I built my first Matrix, I just didn’t know how to mount them. My experience working with Pex tubing to build props last year presented me with the solution to my mounting challenge (I hope). I’ll write about my experience building each of these when I get to it.
I put in my Holiday Coro order last week so I could start building the the domes and North poles over the labour day long weekend and I’ll be putting in my Light-O-Rama order this week while their summer sale is on.
HolidayCoro Order
Light-O-Rama Order
| 1 | 12V – 16×100 Square Pixel Package with Pixie16 Controller |
| 6 | RJ45 Waterproof Dangle |
| 3 | USB-RS485-HS |
| 1 | Singing Tree – Ralphie |
| 1 | Singing Tree – Zuzu |
Additional Acrylic globes for the top of the North Poles were ordered from 1,000 Bulbs.
On top of all of this I’ll need a bunch of hardware from Home Depot, but I haven’t fully inventoried that yet.
Build Schedule
Now I’ve decided to move forward I needed to establish a build schedule, I’ve been looking at more sophisticated tools for this but my excel model seems to work well enough. This schedule is based on getting the items I cannot reach from the ladder up before the snow comes, weather forecasts can accelerate or delay certain prop installs.
| Group | Prop | Due Date |
| Arches | Build Arches | 2021-10-03 |
| Domes | Buid Domes | 2021-10-03 |
| Domes | Dome Prototype | 2021-10-03 |
| House RGB | Install Garage Outline Mounting | 2021-10-03 |
| North Poles | Buid Poles | 2021-10-03 |
| North Poles | Build replacement mounting circles | 2021-10-03 |
| Upper Matrix | Build Frames | 2021-10-03 |
| House LED | Upper Icicles R-LW | 2021-10-10 |
| House RGB | Left Upper-RGB | 2021-10-10 |
| House RGB | Right Upper-RGB | 2021-10-10 |
| House RGB | Upper Roof-RGB | 2021-10-10 |
| Upper Matrix | Insert Lights | 2021-10-10 |
| House RGB | Briks Window -RGB | 2021-10-17 |
| House RGB | Garage Pitch-RGB | 2021-10-17 |
| House RGB | Iains Window-RGB | 2021-10-17 |
| House RGB | Living Room Pitch-RGB | 2021-10-17 |
| Curtain Lights | Display Upper Curtains | 2021-10-24 |
| House RGB | Front Door-LW | 2021-10-24 |
| House RGB | Garage – RGB | 2021-10-24 |
| House RGB | Garage Door Outline – RGB | 2021-10-24 |
| House RGB | Living Room Window-RGB | 2021-10-24 |
| Border Panels | Insert Ground Stakes | 2021-10-31 |
| Candy Canes | Add Ground Stakes | 2021-10-31 |
| House LED | House Garage Globes-LW | 2021-10-31 |
| House LED | House Snowflakes-LW | 2021-10-31 |
| Trees | Ash Tree | 2021-10-31 |
| Upper Matrix | Install House Matrix | 2021-10-31 |
| Yard | Santa & Elves Ground Stakes | 2021-10-31 |
| House LED | Wreath R-LW | 2021-11-07 |
| Trees | Pixel Tree-RGB | 2021-11-07 |
| Trees | Spruce Giant Lights | 2021-11-07 |
| Trees | Spruce Net Lights -LW | 2021-11-07 |
| Trees | Spruce -RGB | 2021-11-07 |
| Yard | Frank BorderL-IM | 2021-11-07 |
| Yard | Jim Border R-IM | 2021-11-07 |
| Arches | Display Arches | 2021-11-15 |
| Curtain Lights | Display Lower Curtains | 2021-11-15 |
| House LED | Wreath L-LW | 2021-11-15 |
| Mini Trees | Mini Tree Display | 2021-11-15 |
| Stockings | Display Stockings | 2021-11-15 |
| Yard | Floodlight Left-RGB | 2021-11-15 |
| Yard | Floodlight Right RGB | 2021-11-15 |
| Yard | Ground Accents | 2021-11-15 |
| Domes | Install Domes | 2021-11-21 |
| North Poles | Display Poles | 2021-11-21 |
| Yard | Candles | 2021-11-21 |
| Yard | Candy Canes | 2021-11-21 |
| Yard | Elves Cutout + Flood | 2021-11-21 |
| Yard | Install RGB Candy Canes | 2021-11-21 |
| Yard | Nutcracker | 2021-11-21 |
| Yard | Pixel Panels | 2021-11-21 |
| Yard | Santa Cutout + Flood | 2021-11-21 |
| Fence | Side Fence Banner | 2021-11-28 |
| Fence | Side Fence Flood | 2021-11-28 |
| Fence | Side Gate Banner | 2021-11-28 |
| Fence | Side Gate Flood | 2021-11-28 |
| House | Garage Door Cover | 2021-11-28 |
| Yard | Donation Bin | 2021-11-28 |
Hopefully my Coro order arrives tomorrow and I can start building props over the next few weeks and begin installing them in early October.
Chasin' Rudolph 