2024 is almost over: what worked, what might you change?

ryanschristmaslights

ryanschristmaslights

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Adelaide, Australia
With less than a week until 2025, display tear down is almost here. How did your 2024 show go overall? Was anything in particular a fan favourite - e.g. a specific element or sequence? Have you started thinking about potential changes for next year?


Here is a video of one song from my 2024 display:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CNCci9bHZI


Santa Claus is Coming to Town seemed to be hit for younger visitors at my show. Perhaps because it involves Santa dashing across the icicles hanging from the gutter and then waving on my mega tree. I actually added the waving Santa last year, however I did not have sufficient pixel strand density for most visitors to see it. Bumping the strands from 18 to 28 certainly helped!

Again for this year a local brass band played several carols one evening a few days before Christmas. Over the course of that evening a number of younger kids were trying to step inside the back of my mega tree, even with a low-height barrier on one side. Unfortunately one of them tripped over a guy wire anchor point behind the tree where they shouldn't have been walking. I added a disused pet barrier fence with a no entry sign zip tied to it (pictured below) to see out the rest of this season, with some orange traffic cones on the opposite side. For 2025 I am leaning towards chain barriers instead. Maybe even have one or two small pixel elements (of some sort) beneath the chain to deter smaller children from ducking underneath.

xmas24-mega-tree-barrier-no-entry.jpg

Crowds overall were down for me this year, up until the week of Christmas really. Fewer visitors stopped their car for an entire song or chose to park and get out. How did everyone else go?
 
This year we ran the power cable for the ice-cream trailer that parks out front over top of the footpath rather than along the ground under some cable covers, nobody tripped on the cable this year because it wasn't there.

Nobody tried to enter the display after-hours this year, which is a huge plus for us.

Mega tree had a broken wire about a week into the display, too high to repair without dropping the tree, however there were no good days without wind to drop the tree to repair it, so it has stayed there.

One pixel died in the overhead matrix on Christmas Eve

Took out one of the sparkly lights under the car port with the roof-racks on the ute (oops)

Other than that, everything went flawlessly without issues, we also noticed extremely decreased numbers of visitors compared to the last 5 years (Even during covid we were busier). 21st 22nd 23rd 24th and 25th so far have been our busiest nights of the year, with the 25th being the busiest Christmas night light show we've ever had.

Lots of repeat visitors which is great to see, and lots of people who have never been before which is great that word is spreading around!

Here's the video of the display (just a silent fly over)
 
Last night tonight had a great turn out of people with a lot of repeat visitors during December and other from past years that have made it a part of their Christmas time
Needed to start earlier each night as people where coming and waiting for the show with alot of young ones
Had one prop go up in flames
Needed to replace a total of 8 LED and one controller that I will chase up next year to see what had happen with it but glad I had some spare bits to keep the show going ever night
 
I added a few new elements this year... house outlines, gingerbread people from Ink Creations, some extra candy canes, and some other custom props, and these all helped to fill in some blank spaces and really make the show a little more cohesive. But my personal favourite was rebuilding my 24x75x2" megatree as a seed tree at 42x196x1". The design was inspired by @Kent with a custom PCB topper. It looked so much nicer and more impactful with the higher density and a little taller, and is much lighter and fits in 1/6 the space.

image0.jpeg

Had one "run in" with the street grinch, which was a real low point, but overall it has been a great December.

Have some plans for next year to perhaps grow the gingerbread theme a little more and create a little "scene" with it. I'd also like to switch out some elements and move some others so it looks a little different to the past 5 years. Time will tell how it ends up. :)
 
Very small 'display' for me. Went from 500 pixels outline to about 3000 with flakes, arches trees etc. Quiet street but neighbours love what I've done..

Wife seems to have approved a mega tree next year so the brain has already started planning for that plus upgrading flakes, outline matrices etc..

Can't wait
 
Overall my show this year went quite well. Aside from a couple more pixels dropping colours and one section on the roof that worked 50% of the time for the last 10 days everything worked as expected. Had some decent (for me) crowds and no real issues with rowdy behaviour or traffic jams. Only had 2x instances of kids dancing in the driveway that had to be shooed away so may need to add a couple of signs to make it more obvious, unless of course I change design and allow people to come up a little closer for photos, still undecided.
Mrs DJ also saw the Grinch coro some people had and has requested one of those for next year, so there's at leats 1 upgrade happening!
 
Things that worked:
  • Having replacements for all my terrible 2022/etop pixels so I could rip/replace strings
  • Remote Falcon. Had 424 requests over the ~2 weeks it was running. (people thought it was cool - and it also helped people stick around. If they had picked a song - they were committed to listening through the next few tracks to hear *their* song).
  • Seed pixel outlines. I'm running a bunch of 30mm spaced, dual data seeds in outlines - and they worked really well. I'll do a full post on them at some point.
  • General pixel reliability has been good. 0 failures with 2024 purchases.
  • Moving heads worked and wowed people. Still a long way to go with sequencing them.

Some things to think about and update for next year:
  • Having some PSA's for crowd management for the busy night
  • Normalising the MP3 audio levels better
  • My show has a bunch of things at ground level. These look great with a few visitors - but in large crowds on Christmas Eve - people at the back couldn't see any of it.
 
Well this year, I went extra large an got issues to suit.
The bad:-
- The Seed Matrix on the Top Shed roof failed in sections, (too high to repair)
- The Big FM transmitter failed an so did the Rasp pi5 {master}, (too high to repair)
- The gazibo i used to cover gear is destroying itself because of the wind.
- The 20m Seed Matrix, along the back field, is still being destroyed by wind.
- I used a higher Resolution for the Virtual Displays, making some rendering times go from 300ms to 3200ms
- Strip megatree controller started having issues {j1sys}
- My archs controller (bbb+cape) semi failed (could not access webpage or upload sequences, but it still played them)
- Handing out Candy Canes to cars ended up with extra sore feet for days.

The Good:- ( What i have learned )
-Its good to have backup hardware
- (small FM transmitter + rasp pi 4 {replacement master}
- Spaire controllers (falcon v2 for strip tree), pixelbone5 rack ( archs).
- When running Virtual Displays, use a separate pi for each projector if doing 432x768 screen size or larger (pi4 lockedup, pi5 stutters)
- Don't put props up High unless you have access to them or your 110% sure there wont be any issues.
- Make sure all Network cables are in perfect working order (esp for remote differential boards)

The Impressive:- {F.I.G.J.A.M.}
-Had lots of people comment the parking was easyer (could handle 25 cars each side if road) only had like 20 at peak tho.
-Going Extra Large gave people different angles to look from.
-Moving the Display got totally different Viewers, even tho i advertised every-ware. (Interstate an older people)
-The usal, "This is the Best Display they have ever seen"..

Now would i do it again.. Heck yer,
Yes - It was very painful & things got destroyed, But thats the whole part of this hobby, "Push Yourself to New Limits"
edited-2024-12-21 22.19.22.jpg

Ive attached a couple of the (Bad) bits that got recorded
- The Ground from hell
- Wind V's Seed Matrix
- Wind V's Gazibo
 
Last edited:
B4IGO said:
gingerbread
Click to expand...
Where did the little Gingerbread people come from? the ones I found online are like 1m but was looking something closer 500mm.

I add two Baldrick controllers this year, both worked without issue, adv night time temp was high 30's and mid 40's during the day and it didn't seem to bother them, that's about 110f for un-metircated.
 
What didn't work:
  • 2022 pixels failing
  • new black pixels failing
  • recycling solar lights (signalling issues)
What did work:
  • Electric winch on the megatree saved my butt! - 20/10 would recommend!
  • New kangaroos added a nice bit of fill
  • 5px tall peace stakes as a garden edging - will be tripling the number of those installed
  • Floodlights for wall wash
  • new 300px 700mm star
  • Ecoflow battery for repairs
    PXL_20241224_044913043.jpg
Changes for next year:
  • 2400 new pixels for the tree, cos bugger doing that again
  • More peace stakes for garden edging - these will be permanently installed
  • More window outlines
  • Either a second, taller megatree or a 10px tall matrix around the gutter.
 
Last edited:
@Wayne1 @ryanschristmaslights they are from Ink Creations

www.inkcreations.com.au

Gingerbread Men & Women - Ink Creations | Digital Printing | Christmas Light Props

Here we have Gingerbread men & women, nothing beats the smell or taste of a gingerbread house around Christmas. Also nothing beats the look of some gingerbread people in your light show
www.inkcreations.com.au www.inkcreations.com.au

They were a real hit and being printed look so good during the day or night. they also present some interesting sequencing opportunies with their various sub models for outlines, body parts, etc.
 
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