It is the middle of the first week of 2023 and most of us have finished up our displays between Christmas and New Year's Eve. As we tackle the task of tearing down and packing away our 2022 hard work (gasp!
), no doubt some of us are thinking about what to do differently for next time.
Is there something specific about your 2022 display that you're really happy with or worked better than expected? Or have you identified something that didn't work as expected or that you'd like to change/improve for next year?
What I thought worked well for my display is how I utilised my pixel icicles (aka pixicles) in the new song I added for 2022: Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. The pixicles were used more like a matrix in the choruses with a low resolution Santa sleigh picture racing from side to side (inspired by @darylc's fence matrix some years ago - thanks for the idea
). A number of children of different ages that visited the show spotted the pixicle sleigh and said it was cool.

As for what didn't work as expected... This Christmas season for the first time I experienced several freezes with some sets of old single colour LED strings controlled by multiple LOR DC 16ch controllers and couldn't work out why. The only change that comes to mind between this and last year is the show PC OS moving from Windows 7 to Windows 10 (fresh install). This issue was happening across multiple DC controllers and would cause light strings to turn on correctly as sequenced but then stay on for several seconds. So because of this issue (plus the age of the LED strings getting on to 13-15 years and becoming more brittle), I am considering changing even more of my show to use GS8208 12V bullet pixels (to match what I already have).
Interested to read how things went for everyone else!

Is there something specific about your 2022 display that you're really happy with or worked better than expected? Or have you identified something that didn't work as expected or that you'd like to change/improve for next year?
What I thought worked well for my display is how I utilised my pixel icicles (aka pixicles) in the new song I added for 2022: Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. The pixicles were used more like a matrix in the choruses with a low resolution Santa sleigh picture racing from side to side (inspired by @darylc's fence matrix some years ago - thanks for the idea


As for what didn't work as expected... This Christmas season for the first time I experienced several freezes with some sets of old single colour LED strings controlled by multiple LOR DC 16ch controllers and couldn't work out why. The only change that comes to mind between this and last year is the show PC OS moving from Windows 7 to Windows 10 (fresh install). This issue was happening across multiple DC controllers and would cause light strings to turn on correctly as sequenced but then stay on for several seconds. So because of this issue (plus the age of the LED strings getting on to 13-15 years and becoming more brittle), I am considering changing even more of my show to use GS8208 12V bullet pixels (to match what I already have).
Interested to read how things went for everyone else!