How to start

So you’ve decided to join our Christmas light hobby and have a light display on your house (or apartment, shed or car).

First, let's look at how much time there is until Christmas and how much time (and money) you can dedicate to the hobby, it’s not a joke that many in the hobby have been working on THIS Christmas since February so if you are reading this at the end of October, you might find it easier and less stressful to look at next year rather than this.

Did you know you can download xLights for free and design your entire show without buying a single thing?

A general display consists of two elements, the Layout and the sequence, with the effort required for both of these they could almost be considered two separate hobbies in themselves.

Layout

The layout and building of your lights is what most would consider the ‘bulk’ of the work, depending on the level of complexity.

Stand where your audience will stand and take a photo of where the display will be, then you can import that into your light display software and start placing where the lights will be.

Lights are generally grouped into lines, props and trees;

Lines can be put around the house and windows for a fantastic effect Props shapes that are generally made of correx and lights are pushed through to give a certain shape such as a star, bulb, tree or arches Trees are a group of lines with a star on top, depending on the amount of lines and lights with enough lights and lines, you’ve got yourself a MEGA TREE

Once you’ve decided on your layout, it’s time to start ordering and building!

Sequencing

A sequence is the thing that makes the lights do pretty colours! A sequence ranges from some nice simple effects that just change the colours to fully time coded shows with music, singing elements and DMX fun stuff.

Before you get too excited / overwhelmed once again, the vast majority of people who see your show will be impressed at the simplest effect.

Many people in the hobby do no sequencing at all, they buy sequences (or use free ones) and map them onto their own layout, never feel that there is something wrong with this, it takes a certain type of person to be able to sequence well and also, a lot of people simply don’t enjoy it.

Even if you are using other peoples sequences, it’s important to understand the basics of sequencing and how things work and can be configured (no sequence is going to map perfectly into your layout without some poking and tweaking)