I took 2005 off from putting up a display and set a goal of going to Disney World to see how the professionals decorate for Christmas.  On December 12, 2005, Ron Lister arranged for a behind the scenes tour of the Jennings Osborne light display.  These three million lights used to be on Jennings' home in Little Rock, Arkansas but the neighbors asked him to move his display so he donated everything to Disney World.

The formatting of this page might be a bit "funky" because the pictures are so large.

Disney World provided a great tour guide.  This person had plenty of knowledge of the display.  Work begins in April, they start hanging lights in August and everything is turned on in November.  At the height of set-up, almost 20 people are working.  Maintenance is done by six people while the display is in operation during November and December.  They estimate two weeks to tear down.

The picture above is some of the display at night.  Below are pictures and details of things during the day.

	The street where the display is assembled isn't exactly real.  This is the very end.  The buildings are really three layers of murals tricking the eye into a "forced perspective."
	Here's the lucky group that participated in the behind-the-scene tour!
	This is a typical wireframe.  The toy soldier is about six feet tall and outlined in colored ropelight.  The horizontal clear ropelight in front is part of the "velvet rope line" separating the people from the display.
	The Disney megatree (the tall thing in the background) is anchored on a 10 foot square concrete slab at least 18 inches thick... can't even imagine how much it weighs.  They store the slab in another park during the off-season.  The supporting pole is 50 feet tall and is guyed to other buildings so it stays straight. "Lighting" the tree involved a guy with a cherry-picker hovering at the top.  He would drop a piece of rope to the bottom, another person would tie a string of mini-lights to it and the guy in the cherry picker would pull the rope to the top, anchor the light string and drop the rope to the bottom for the next string.  I think they said it took a couple of weeks to build.  500,000 lights... you can do the math. All the lights are connected to a 16 channel sequencer in a weatherproof box at the bottom.  Pretty darn impressive.
	Here's the base of one of the light trees.
	There are several of these rotating wheels mounted on the roofs of buildings.  About 20 feet in diameter.  The angels and vertical lights turn.
	This is the second story balcony of one of the buildings.  Notice the vertical strands of mini-lights.  The lights cover everything!
	More wireframes.  Again, notice the vertical strands of mini-lights on the buildings.
	Close-up of one of the wireframes.  The frames are mounted to very heavy duty frames that can be set anywhere.
	Another close-up of one of the wireframes.
	This is pretty hard to describe.  The rotating globe is made of ropelight.  The goal posts can't be seen at night but support the two large angels on either side of the globe as well as the "Pease On Earth" banner.
	Notice the arch of lights.  The background is another forced perspective mural.  Behind the mural is the official "behind the scenes!"
	Behind that huge mural is the old Disney theater for the Hunchback of Notre Dame.  Here is a rack of wireframes they're not using this year.
	... and more wireframes.
	... and more wireframes.
	This is a typical sequencer box.  The electronics are in the little white box.  The output is connected to heavy duty 20 amp solid state relays.
	Not a good picture, but we're looking at some  experimentation with EL (electro-luminescence) wire.
	Disney makes it snow for the event.  They have 60 standard snow making machines... just like the ones we use.  Bubbles are blown through a special sock to make really small bubbles that actually do look like snow flakes.  Only 20 machines are on at any given time while another 20 are resting.  Still another 20 are being refurbished.  With this many snow making machines, you buy liquid snow in big barrels.
	A close-up and proof you can buy snow in a barrel from a company in Canada.
	Just some of the leftover wire connecting everything.
	Still more unused wireframes.
	Here are some of the crowns and bottoms of the light trees.  Look carefully and see nails welded to the iron rings.
	Unused soldiers waiting for next year.
	I'm not real sure why this was in the storage area.  It's a large barrel of eggnog... now with more nog.
	And finally, the ultimate behind the scenes shot.  Everything ends up coming to this master control room.  In the background is the audio for the display.  In the foreground is the DMX controller for the snow machines.  In the middle is Ron Lister with his fingers on a simple toggle switch.  Throwing the switch starts a cascade of relays among three distributed power transformers which turn on all the lights in less than two seconds.  Not that's power!