All About the Show

Table of Contents

Our Location
#

We’re located in the Anderson Mill West area of Cedar Park, just north of Austin, TX.

Equipment
#

Control Equipment
#

Surprisingly, the brains of the entire show is a $60 Raspberry Pi 4. It runs a program called Falcon Player (FPP) that takes the playlist, sequences and effects for the show and sends that data to a Falcon F48 Differential Controller. The F48 further processes the data and talks to several Differential Smart Receivers distributed throughout the ‘stage’. Each Smart Receiver controls a small group of light strings.

The Lights
#

All the lights in the display are WS2811 RGB LED “pixel” nodes. With a few exceptions, like the Leaping Arches, all are bullet-style nodes. In the arches we use WS2811 LED strips.

There are nearly 10,000 individual lights in both the Halloween and Christmas shows.

The Music
#

In addition to sending light data to the F48, the Raspberry Pi also handles playing the music. It is connected to a low-power FM transmitter, allowing visitors to listen in their cars or with portable FM radios while watching the show without disturbing the neighbors.

When a show song is not actively playing, I’ll play ‘intermission’ music from my personal music library, or the following favorite online streaming channels:

Dead Air Radio (The Sound of Halloween)
Santa Radio
SomaFM (Usually ‘Mission Control’ or ‘Groove Salad’)

The Software
#

For audio editing, processing and normalization, we use Audacity.

For developing the show sequences and effects, we use xLights.

To run the show, we use Falcon Player (FPP).

For scheduling and automation tasks, we use Home Assistant.

Features
#

House Outline
#

In 2024, we moved away from temporarily mounting the horizontal light strips with PVC pipes and instead installed Permatrack under the soffits along the first floor roofline. Not only do we avoid setup/takedown every year, but we now have lights year-round to add some color for lesser holidays. An added benefit is that we routed CAT-6 cable from the garage inside the track and installed waterproof RJ-45 ports. This is where we connect the remote enclosures instead of running cable all the way to the main controller, which is now located in the garage.

The vertical lights are attached to 3/4" EMT electrical conduit with pipe hangers…

Mega-Tree
#

The center pole of the Mega-Tree (Christmas show only) is a 10’ length of galvanized iron pipe.

Matrix
#

UPDATE: The Matrix was semi-retired and we now use a projector to display on the garage. If I can find a place to put it, it may be resurrected in the future.