Playlist Strategy for Annual Show - Seeking Input

[BluePat]

Hello everyone,

I'm in the process of putting together a playlist for my second-year show, and I'm curious to learn how those of you who have been doing shows for several years handle your playlists.

Here are some questions I'd love to hear your thoughts on:

1. Do you start from scratch each year, incorporating all new songs?
2. Or do you simply stick to the songs you used last year?
3. Perhaps you prefer a mix of both old and new tracks?
4. Do you rework the songs you used in the previous year?

As for me, I've managed to find some exciting new songs for this year's show. I've also made slight modifications to last year's tracks to integrate them with new props. However, I don't want the show to become too lengthy, so I can't include all the songs.

Any feedback or advice you can provide regarding playlist strategies would be greatly appreciated. I'm open to suggestions and eager to learn from your experiences!

Thank you all in advance for your valuable insights!

 

[LawrenceDriveLights]

Depends a lot on your show and what music you like.

Song choice can impact the type of audience for example kids type songs will attract family and techno type songs will attract the the doof doof base audience.

Generally used to keep the popular / favourite songs from precious year and tweak to suit layout (especially if adding new props), if you have any videos of your display its a good idea to re-watch and see if you could improve the sequence etc.


Also depends on how people view your display, do they stay for only a couple of songs like most people seem to do or stay for entire playlist? Some people use a short play list to keep traffic moving.

You can alternate your playlist each night if you have a long playlist.

Lots of options really and no No,1 rule that suits everyone display.

 

[Zuseleets]

Hey @BluePat

I just have one playlist and loop it. I add all new songs each year and try to keep my entire show to 20mins length, so usually 6-8 songs total.

I like creating a show intro too, so people know when the show has looped, although some visitors stay alot longer than the show length. Visitors to my show generally stay in their cars and park front in, facing my house. On busier nights I have cars and people everywhere and tend to just throw candy canes in their direction and hope for the best.

My show was dark last year, but the year before I used Remote Falcon. Remote Falcon is a good way to split up a long playlist if you can't decide what songs to cull.

I added a bunch of popular songs from previous years to the RF playlist for voting. This worked well in some ways and not so in other ways. I think I had my settings wrong for it as I found that sometimes songs were been played repetitively. If I use it again, I would need to look into the settings a little more.

I think if I get a collection of kids songs, I might have a kids show early between 6:00pm - 7:30pm ( I'm up north in Townsville where its dark at 6pm), than have the normal show playing on loop for the remaining of the evening.

In the end its up to you. You can change up the playlist nightly, have multiple playlists each night, or just have one playlist on repeat each night Hey, you can just have one song on repeat all night long, lol.

 

[scamper]

As I don't purchase sequences, I tend to reuse songs a lot and if I get a chance to do a new song, then great. I have a playlist of around 10 and each year I will redo some sections to touch them up. Most of my audience is a stop for a few minutes then roll on, so it really doesn't matter too much. I have had people come by several times over the period and think I only have 1 song as they manage to hear the same one each time
At the end of the day, my choice is for what I like as I have to listen to it on repeat and for hours and hours when sequencing and if other people like it, then good.

 

[merryoncherry]

It has something to do with taste, and something to do with other decisions on show design.

I've decided that people get much more enjoyment out of the show if I purchase the sequences. (Otherwise it'd be completely dark... I really don't have the right talent and amount of time to do my own.) I think purchased sequences is a single digit percentage of what I spend on the show, 10% tops, so a good investment in order to have it actually work.

We also made the decision that we want people to park at the end of the street and walk back, so we have selfie stations and handouts, etc. To make that work, we play music out loud on speakers under the porch, so you can hear it in the house a bit. This means a 20-minute loop would be repetitive enough to drive us nuts. This reinforces the idea of purchased sequences, reusing the sequences we like from years before, etc., the more the merrier.

So actual show schedule, based on last year and sequences I've managed to acquire for this year... for Halloween, is likely to be a 1-hour block played at 6:30p (when it gets mostly dark), 7:30p, and 8:30p. Then, some songs will get old or bug the wife, or we'll have some we're excited to run, and will make substitutions. At some point I will have mapped enough to expand the block to 90 minutes, played twice. Then, Veteran's Day is likely to be a 1-day only run... I had 4 appropriate sequences last year and expect to have 5 this year, so a short loop but only for one day. Christmas... by that time of year the time has changed and the show can run from 4:30p - 9:30p. It will also be arranged into hour-long blocks. Last year I started with a single hour and expanded until there were 4 hours of sequences split into 5 blocks with a little reuse... this year given how much will be reruns from last year, I hope to have more variety right from the start. (All a matter of time, though... even importing takes a bit of work.) Finally, for the week after Christmas, I rip out all the tracks about Santa etc., and go with winter or non-holiday songs. I think last year it was 2.5 hours of material, so everything ran twice. People kept saying they missed some of the Christmas songs, maybe I'll relent and leave a few in this year.

I've heard the tip that if you get too much traffic you may have to switch the playlist to one that is more repetitive, or the same song over and over with 30 seconds of darkness in between, or even stop the show. I have these playlists ready to go, and a couple traffic management bumpers, but didn't need them in 2022... there were times where I put strong messages on the approach matrix to try to get people to drive past and park, but didn't have to resort to extreme measures. I've also observed that there will be groups of people (say a parent and a kid) where one wants to stay, and the other wants to leave (it trades back and forth as to whether it is the parent or kid that wants to leave). For these situations, a dark period between song blocks can be the nudge, or sometimes there are songs that have the effect of clearing traffic. (Christina Aguilera's "Haunted Heart" is such a song, I think it's a fine song but it undoubtedly causes 2/3 of the cars to move on.)

I will be doing a little rework of sequences from last year. Mostly, this will be a reimport with the same mapping, but there are a few changes to the layout. Some, like a lightly higher def matrix on one window, will be taken care of easily. Others, like the addition of cats+ghosts for halloween, call for added mappings. The one that could take time is I'm adding a regular Rosa Wreath, and tend to get caught up for a while figuring out how to work HD props like that into the sequences if the vendor used something else. I have new railing PixelTrim for Halloween and Xmas, that could be put to interesting use, but it also could just stay in existing groups. A few other possibilities, but 80%-90 of the mapping will be the same... I hope.

Good luck with your show everyone, and I hope you find a show style that fits your props, location, audience, and that you enjoy your show too.

 

[KiwiPhil]

I started off over planning song order with about 15 songs.

2021 I played a bit with remote falcon, didnt really have time to fully impliment it so just ran all songs on a playlist

2022 Moved to remote falcon and realised people just want kids songs until about 10pm (Thanks LDL for all the kids sequences)!

Then people tend to pick meme / funny songs after 10pm for the last 30 mins of the run time.

Now I just schedule about 8 songs I want to run and let people vote via QR code

here is stats from last year from people voting, after the first song played, the playlist didn't run all night RF just takes over. This year I am just dumping 50 songs into RF and letting it fly on its own

 

[Indigogyre]

Hello, Interesting question as we are all doing it slightly different.

This will be my 3rd year and I am still adding props to it so reusing something from last year is not possible without reworking it.

Most of my sequences are purchased and I troll for a bunch of free ones. Sequencing is not for someone not musically inclined. All songs will be re-used and new ones added annually.

Multiple Show sequences are used for variation:
An earlier kid show for the first couple hours, things kids would seem to prefer. My show can start as early as 5 - 6 (sometimes even 3) and still be easily visible. This is always the same show.
Multiple shows during the week that alternate between the days and tend to be shorter 15 - 20 minutes.
And a slightly longer weekend show about 30ish minutes.
Lastly, sometimes I like to toss on a randomized playlist to make it just different.

I just mix things up to have fun with and hope maybe more then 3 people will show up.

 

[Croydon Lights]

I have different play list for different nights of the week so it not the same each night apart from some favorites' songs and loop the list for the night

 

[thewanderingpine]

Do you have enough visitors to care about how long a "show" is? Some places are so busy that they have to make sure everyone leaves after the "show". But I've never had that many people.

As others have mentioned -- a structured playlist with the option to vote/select a new song via remote falcon seems a good idea to me.

 

[algerdes]

To answer some of your questions:

1. Do you start from scratch each year, incorporating all new songs? - No. Not enough days in the year to do all new.
2. Or do you simply stick to the songs you used last year? - We tend to use all that we created over the years, but... (see below).
3. Perhaps you prefer a mix of both old and new tracks? - Adding new to the mix adds variety. Our visitors come back year after year, so they like to see some new stuff added in.
4. Do you rework the songs you used in the previous year? - We rework SOME. As we learn new techniques and change the layouts each year, changes to the sequences are pretty much required. Not total change, but "sprucing up".

Though you didn't ask about it, we use different playlists on different nights. From Sunday thru Thursday, we run the full show (about 20-24 sequences). On Friday we run subset #1 (about half the sequences) and Saturday we run subset #2 (about the other half). We do have some sequences that get run on every day. The main reason for cutting the show back is the backup of vehicles on those busier nights. If last year is any indication, we may have to do shorter shows on other nights as well. We will see how the year turns out.

This is year 16 for our display, year 12 with the animated section. We are still learning!!!

 

[samber]

There is no right or wrong way of doing it it's what work best for you and your lights.
I do 1 kid's show at 8:45 that runs for about 15miniutes (4 to 5 songs)
Then normal shows at 9:15 9:45 10:15 with a 10:45 on a Friday and Saturday night.
My normal show runs for (4 to 5 song) and then it just very basic light on until the next show starts that way it gives time for people to move on.
I all so do 90% new songs very year.


(This is a Kid's show at 8:45)

 

[BluePat]

Thank you everyone for your input much appreciated. I think Im going to do same as last year, turn the lights on at 8pm, off at 11pm. During that time run a 10 song playlist with a mix of old and new.