Christmas 2008

Record Crowds in 2007!

The 2007 season brought the biggest attendance to our display EVER.  Annual events such as the Saturday before Christmas Illuminated Motorcycle Parade resulted in our biggest Crowds and traffic jambs ever.  We learned that the Sat before Christmas crowd was so large, traffic shut down Hutchinson Road from Circle K to the Veterans Expressway in both directions, every possible street side parking space on Rawls and Carey Road and much of nearby Pennington Road was taken along with complete gridlock  Red Light intersections at Ehrlich & Casey, Ehrlich & Pennington Road,  Ehrlich & Hutchinson and Ehrlich & Lynn Turner/Anderson Road were grid locked with many waiting thru several light changes to get thru the intersection.  Traffic at Hutchinson Road exit in northbound lane had backed up to the Sugarwood Toll Plaza and southbound was back up nearly to the extension to Dale Mabry Hwy. 

To help improve the rotation of visitors and traffic we had to reduce our play list of songs from 90 minutes to around 50 minutes.  A large percentage of visitors like to stay thru the entire play list and this strategy will hopefully help.   We suggest don't wait until the weekend before Christmas to come and visit. Dates from December 1st thru the 20th often have ample street side parking available.  Also Rawls Road has been entirely lighted with street lights from end to end and speed bumps installed on the street to improve visitor safety when coming to see our display.

Hi-Tech Guerilla Projection!

The 2007 introduced our newly acquired ability to synchronize video with the Music and light show.  But how we have been watching this new rage in Europe called Guerilla Projection.   Take a look at this link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeUvjFoEoYw .  We liked what we saw overseas and this has inspired us to bring this new technology to our Christmas show!

We will be keeping the music video concept and in the same spot of the garage wall, however we will be adding new technique of projecting over larger portions of the house in addition. There is an enormous number of all new effects we can do with this technology and in 2008 we expect to have the first ever display in the world featuring custom guerilla projection used in a computerized Christmas display.

We are bringing back our air controlled animated snowman. This snow man will be placed within the video projection area and its FACE will be precision projected into position.  Think of how Disneyworld did the singing statues at the Disneyworld Haunted Mansion, this effect will be identical but with the snowman.  The snow man also has the ability to lean forwards or back, turn head, move a hand at the command of the lightshow software.

We also applying for an FDA variance and taking what steps we can to bring in a "concert grade" 140 nW green/red visible beam laser.  We are examining the idea of using audience scanning with the laser to produce a "laser tunnel" for visitors to walk thru or if red tape and logistics prove too difficult, we'll have an angelic visible beam effect from heaven aiming down at the manger in the Nativity scene. Details are still early and sketchy as of Spring 2008.

UPDATE:

We believe we have mastered a way to convert our entire house chasing lights with LED versions. In addition to continuing to convert our dull incandescent lights to vivid LED lights,  we believe we will be replacing the chasing lights used on the house with waterproof LED chasing lights. They will operate under the same complete control of our computer software as our old incandescent lights had done, but the colors should be much more vivid and with dramatically lower bulb replacement maintenance.

The LED replacement of the house chasing lights will save each participating house about 15 amps of power. In 2008 Oscar Llamas house will be over 80% LED lights and Joseph Ayo's house will be approximately 35 to 50% converted to LED's.  As the light shows get brighter and fuller, LED lights save so much power, our power consumptions expected to continue going down.   For more information on how technology already saves us  almost $1000 in electrical costs,   click HERE.

Experiment in Video (From 2007)

This year was the year we finally realize a dream that started in 2001 when we began the great search for a way for video and audio to be synchronous with the lights and part of the show.

Not every Christmas song we prefer to use has MTV Music videos available for them.  So we had to make several of our own from scratch, and also a couple that others made who we asked permission to use their http://www.youtube.com video.

Rough draft video of a custom made music video that will play on the wall synchronously with the light show.

This video with the late child actor, Jason Ortiz, will be played for our lighted presentation of Donde Esta Santa Claus.  Jason's father was thrilled to hear we wanted to play this video in our display.  Jason was not the original artist of the song but did lip sync to the song a couple years ago.

The Music!

New for 2008:

New songs we hope to have will include Twisted Sister's White Christmas (with sequel video to last year's Twisted Sister Oh Come All Ye Faithful),   Her's Psycadelic Christmas, Light of the Stable and possibly others!.

We try to add at least 3 new songs each year and some old songs get retired or furloughed.  Some of the lesser popular songs you remember from past years might be rotated out to make a time slot available for new songs.

Here is our play list  and ASCAP music licensing information for interested parties and info on the videos used.

DJ Santa - Frosty,   Video starring  Joseph Ayo

Macarena Christmas - Los Del Rios  - MTV Video with cut scenes by Joseph Ayo

Oh Come All Ye Faithful - Twisted Sister - MTV Video

Esta Noche Noche Buena - not licensed (popular Spanish Language Christmas song/Retired)

Greensleeves/Frank Sinatra - not licensed - Video by Joseph Ayo

Christmas Party Mix - DJ Goldfinger     -   not licensed - Video by Joseph Ayo

Salsa We Wish You a Merry Christmas -  BMI Killer Tracks license - Video by Joseph Ayo

A Fifth of Beethoven - Walter Murphy  -  not licensed - Video by Joseph Ayo

Rockin Around the Christmas Tree/Brenda Lee - ASCAP Title # 480041756 - Youtube video

Its Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas/Perry Como - ASCAP Title #390153734 - Video Ayo

Disco Jingle Bells/Starlight Pops Orchestra - ASCAP Title #100039209 - Video by Ayo

Feliz Navidad/Jose Feliciano - ASCAP Title # 360103657 - Video Starring Joseph Ayo

Last Christmas/Wham!! Hip Hop Remix - not licensed (song retired temporarily)

Frosty the Snow Man/Brenda Lee - ASCAP Title #360063932

Christmas is the time to say I love you/Billy Squire - ASCAP Title #330298816 - MTV Video

Christmastime/Christina Aguilera - ASCAP Title #330722026 (retired temporarily)

Jingle Bell Rock/Bobby Helms - ASCAP Title #400013758 - Youtube video

Wreck the Malls/Bob Rivers - ASCAP Title #530423720 - Video by Joseph Ayo

Donde Esta Santa Claus/Augie Rio - ASCAP Title #340059467 - Youtube video

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