We are excited to share another new show for 2020 with you! We are reusing much of the music from 2016, but have trimmed it down by about 1.5 minutes and are completely overhauling the lighting to take advantage of all the new elements (and creative skills) we have gained in the past 4 years. We also added an LED pixel screen to the garage door, which is incredibly bright and gives us a lot of cool new options.
2020 Show Video
Here is a second angle of most of the show, taken from a drone. Thanks to Jonathan Priganc for getting us this awesome footage!
New Stuff for 2020
For 2020, we finally did away with the garage door seven-segment displays and replaced them with a true pixel screen.
New and Improved Garage Door Illumination
After fighting with the fragile garage door seven-segment display for three years, we finally had enough and replaced it with a much better alternative: a 38×16 pixel screen! So far, it has been completely reliable and gives us infinitely more possibilities for sequencing because we can do images, videos, and text that includes ALL the letters in the alphabet instead of being limited by what can be rendered using 7 segments like a calculator.
More details about the new pixel screen are on Garage Door Pixel Screen. For posterity sake, the details of the original seven-segment displays are on Garage Door Seven-Segment Display.
Better Light Diffuser for Living Room Window
After 4 years of fighting with holding panels of shower curtain to our window using blue painter’s tape, we finally upgraded our light diffuser panel for the big living room window. We sewed a single panel from the same material we use with the LED Snowmen that line the sidewalk. This panel is held up just like we do for the two upstairs windows. It is much easier than the old method and we won’t have to deal with the panels falling down over the course of the season.
Details on the light boxes are on Window Light Boxes.
Music
This year’s show is just under 9 minutes long and runs every 10 minutes. When the show is not running, we have some interlude lighting, a brief voice over from Philip, some background music, and a countdown timer running on the seven-segment displays.
For the show, we play portions of the following songs/quotes:
- Quote from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- Good King Joy| Trans-Siberian Orchestra
- Quote from Christmas Vacation
- Deck the Halls| Relient K
- We Wish You a Merry Christmas| Relient K
- I Heard Three Ships | Rivertribe
- Queen of the Winter Night | Trans-Siberian Orchestra
- Mad Russian’s Christmas | Trans-Siberian Orchestra
- Quote from Back to the Future
- Christmas Eve Sarajevo| Trans-Siberian Orchestra
- (Interlude) The First Noel | Gary Hoey
Broomfield Lights 