Control Geek

About a year ago I checked out the Macy's holiday light show, which has a long tradition in Philadelphia (write up with photos and videos here).  Around Thanksgiving, I got a nice email from Nikola Sizgorich, who works on the Organ Restoration Team (see Friends of the Wanamaker Organ), and he gave me an update on new developments on the show, which I posted here.  Yesterday, Mr. Sizgorich (pictured at right) gave my friend and I a great tour backstage at the show (and the organ, writeup here), and showed us fascinating old and new stuff.

The show is hung from a large truss (as Mr. Kerecman detailed in the previous post), with a series of panels embedded with LEDs, and strings of individual lights.

The system is fully automated, but there is a control position stage left:

The lighting is run from a Strand Rack Pallette system:

The audio comes from CD players, and Mr. Sizgorich said this rack is the next to be updated:

Mr. Sizgorich also took us into the bowels of Macy's to see some of the old system, which included a fountain and was mostly manually operated:

And if anyone wants a huge amount of free incandescent lamps like these:

Let me know, since they have a few extras they are no longer using :

Click any photo for a larger version; more photos here.

Update on Sunday, December 27, 2009 at 10:02PM by John Huntington

I just came across this video of the show from the 80's, and they even show the console above in use: