CHRISTMAS UTAH
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DISPLAY ADJUNCTS
BUBBLE MACHINES: Bubble machines give the illusion of falling snow, and the kids love chasing the bubbles up and down the sidewalk. The 2006 display included two machines: a Chauvet B550 Bubble King and a V-9902 Pro-Bubbler. Both are high output commercial bubble machines. Of the two I prefer the B550. It creates more bubbles that rise higher in the air, uses less fluid, and makes less mess than the V-9902. The bubble machines only came on intermittently during the light show, but I still used about 1 1/2 gallons of bubble fluid each night. I added internal heating elements to the bubblers to keep the fluid from freezing. I've used many different types of bubble fluid, from homemade concoctions to expensive commercial fluids. The best bubble fluid I have found is from Walmart. It comes in 100 oz bottles and is only sold during the summer months.
STROBE LIGHTS: The display included two 750 watt Zap Strobes, and about 50 Curtain Strobes. The Zap Strobes put out a very bright flash of blinding light, so were used sparingly. They did a great job of accentuating some of the exciting punches in the lighting sequences. The Zap Strobes were controlled with coil relays that received their signal from the show computer. The smaller Curtain Strobes are 4 watts each, and were spread through the pine trees. They gave a magical effect similar to a sports stadium when hundreds of camera flashes are going off in the stands. The best place to purchase high quality Curtain Strobes at a reasonable price is christmaslightshow.com.
MEGA TREE: The Mega Tree is in the center of the main yard. It stands twenty-eight feet tall and is nine feet across at the base. The Mega Tree uses 16 channels of computer control to give it motion. There were 3,200 lights on the tree in 2006 instead of the 6,400 it was intended to have. The center of the Mega Tree is a very heavy telescoping pole that I built out of galvanized steel pipes. The bottom pipe screws into a socket that extends deep into a concrete footing. The socket is below grass level so it is unnoticeable when the pipe is removed.
PIVOT ARM: At the top of the Mega Tree is a pivot arm that can raise display items about fifty feet into the air. The pivot arm was originally designed to hold two snow machines that needed to be lowered each night for service. The snow machines were used in the 2005 show. I decided to not use the snow machines in 2006 because of the amount of maintenance they require. Instead I moved my Angel to the top of the arm.
TREE-TOP STARS: Each of the three large pine trees is topped with a star. These stars were made with welded steel rods covered with ropelight. Since the stars are about sixty feet up in the air they can be seen from very far away.
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