Christmas Town

[Party Rocker]

Oh there was park-wide uniforms last year? Huh, I can't remember what they look like, I must have never noticed them.

Park wide uniforms started with Christmas Town in 2009, black pants with a red shirt/sweater/jacket that has the CT logo. Black gloves and dark green knit hat. Actually, the pictures are from previous years, but I can only assume much of them look similar to the craziness that is probably going on now.

 

[Party Rocker]

Sorry to double post, I haven't done it in a while But a I got these beautiful pictures taken in November back in previous years. Many of you might find them quite nice, or at least I think they are really nice.

 

[Party Rocker]

There is a change from last year that we haven't quite captured yet about France. Ring Toss will be in Aquitaine this year. I know small detail, but hey its still something.

 

[Malsdad]

Hi all. I've been enjoying your posts for a about a year now and finally am deciding to post because trying to figure out the answer to the following questions has driven me bonkers! lol. I've seen several people post about this, (and read through the parking thread and saw the map screenshot)but still can not figure out how to get to the employee entrance to park in England lot (with my premium pass.) We're hoping to use that way when we visit throughout the next month+ for Christmas Town. We live in Williamsburg and usually take 64 to the main toll booth. Is there another exit I should take off 64 - should we go off 199 or Pocahontas Trail instead? Thank you in advance for your help We're so excited. This will be our 2nd Christmas Town experience since moving to VA last year!

I've been having nightmares about my first time using my pass to do this. I kind of picture it like Dorothy going to the Wizards castle and a little man telling me I can't come in I guess once it works I'll calm down, but I do have first day jitters.

 

[chickenking]

It'll be OK. The security folks there are all super-cool; especially Mr. Jeff. Ask him about his good luck charm.

 

[Nicole]

I was worried the first time I tried it, as well. I kept picturing the gate guard looking at me as if I was crazy and sending me back to the main gate. When we got there, it was really easy and they were very friendly and helpful. Just tell them you have a Platinum Pass and they will give you an "E" hang tag and wave you on.

 

[Malsdad]

6,000,000 lights.

Hmmm. I started to think about this and I was wondering to myself, just how much $$$ does it cost BGW to run that many lights? So, I ran some calculations...

I'm basing this on an average of 60,000 100' strings of LED's.

Since we don't know the deal per kw/hr BGW has with the electric company, I'll put this into a residential perspective for the average Mr. & Mrs. Joe.

It would cost you or me approx $353 per hour to run 6,000,000 LED lights.

That's $5.88 per minute. Roughly 10 cents a second.

Then my next thought, based on the hell I've experienced over the past 30 years of putting up my own lights, is how long does it take to put up 6,000,000 lights?

Based again on 60,000 100' strings, and averaging 10 minutes per string, it would take 10,000 hours. Of course this is based on one individual putting up every string. So breaking it down even further....

50 people could do it in 200 hours
100 people could do it in 100 hours

That's based on non stop light Putter Uppers going non-stop.

Lastly, although I know LED's take extremely less electric than the old sets, I still think they would have to have some great electric grids implemented throughout the park to accomodate all of these lights without affecting any other electric in the park. Lord forbid I would be at Grogan's and the taps suddenly shut off.:shocked:


This was all meant to give everyone a ballpark of just what entails 6,000,000 lights. Please don't start googling LED wattage and trying to correct me on how many bulbs they use on a string at BG. I'm not out to be accurate on BG specifics, just trying to get a perspective on price and time.:shy:

On the flip side, if you can add anything I left out or may have forgotten, shoot!

 

[chickenking]

I hear the park uses a lot of generators for CT lights.

 

[Party Rocker]

CK hears correctly, all the Christmas lights in the park are powered by diesel generators located throughout the park. The park actually rents the generators and does not personally own them. The only lights that are actually plugged into the park's electric are some of those that follow along the path of the train, otherwise, all generator.

That is why during Christmas Town you will see some extra fences go up around very small square areas, that is fencing to cover up the generators. It also gives Entertainment a good look at how expensive it is for them to power the lights. The one department is in charge of paying those bills for the generators.

Just to note, don't get your hopes up for something special from the North Pole Outpost, they moved the benches blocking off the area approximately 20 to 30 feet back. Not much extra space at all, the only thing special is that the shop there might be open.

Also note, there will be at least 5 outside vendors in the Mistletoe Marketplace. I don't know the exact figure, but I do know there are still some outside vendors participating this year. i can only assume most of them have been cut with the exception of a few last stands.

 

[Malsdad]

Also note, there will be at least 5 outside vendors in the Mistletoe Marketplace. I don't know the exact figure, but I do know there are still some outside vendors participating this year. i can only assume most of them have been cut with the exception of a few last stands.

Food vendors?

 

[morte615]

Yes 90% of the CT lights are run on generators. Last year I was one of the techs starting and maintaining the generators. France, the O Tennabalm tree and surrounding areas is run off house power. There were a few other places where we would just plug things in but that's about it.

We had (and it's been a year so my memory may be a little off) 35 or so diesel generators running the lights. Most generators would run through about 1/4 a tank (of a 90-100 gal tank) through the weekend. Festa would run 1/2 to 3/4 of a tank. Festa had 5 (?) generators just for itself but they were all incandescent large wattage lights. England was probably the other big hog because they used incandescent lights but they were the mini version that was not quite as high wattage. Pretty much everywhere else used mostly LED's with a few incandescent lights scattered throughout.

We had 6 techs (not including the person from Oak Island that was in charge) that would start about 4 hours before the event. We would do small maintenance and start up the generators. Then as the countries closed and cleared we would turn off the generators. We always had to wait for a country to clear (sometimes 2 countries because a generator would run lights in more than one country at times) to turn anything off.

It is a VERY involved and busy day for the techs. Once the park opens and everything is on we would walk the park in laps. We were allowed to stop and watch the shows if we wanted but we had to leave our radio on in case there was a problem. Most of the time we had little to no issues unless it rained then we were running constantly resetting GFCI's

I am not back this year, I am working with the Toledo and Columbus Zoo's for their events this year and they are both on much smaller scales! But I enjoyed my time and would love to do it again!

 

[Malsdad]

Yes 90% of the CT lights are run on generators. Last year I was one of the techs starting and maintaining the generators. France, the O Tennabalm tree and surrounding areas is run off house power. There were a few other places where we would just plug things in but that's about it.

I don't remember ever hearing any generators last year. How far away are they kept? Of course when I go this Friday, guess what I'll be searching and listening for? :blush:

 

[Hoopla]

They had one of the generators up for quite awhile now in that space for the benches in front of that grassy area near LNM. That thing is HUGE!! At first I thought it was a flood light, but now I know the truth!!

 

[morte615]

The generators are commercial versions designed to work in residential area's so they have a lot of sound proofing built in. The ones we used are rented from Sunbelt Rentals and are amazingly quite when you are standing right next to them.

http://www.sunbeltrentals.com/equipment/category.aspx?id=s391

We used both the 100KW and the 120KW versions.

 

[chickenking]

Click for: The penguins are on their way to Busch Gardens

 

[Party Rocker]

The generators are actually sometimes right out in front of you, and are surprisingly either quieter than you'd think or all the music overpowers their sounds. Some generators are located as follows:

Banbury Cross - Behind the Cotton Candy stand and Behind the Globe Theater
Heatherdowns - In front of the Killarney Crossing
Wild Reserve - Hidden behind Lorikeet Glen
Oktoberfest - Behind Mact Tower adjacent to the Pretzel shop.
San Marco - In front of the Italy Wine stand (Also a large propane tank is located inbetween the Restaurant and Theater up by the Theater.)
Holiday Hills - One is next to 3 Point, One is across the train tracks along the service road, One is behind the games
Pompeii - Pompeii Photos/Pompeii Exit

Banbury Cross Trees - White Incandescent Mini with White Incandescent Twinkle Lights
Heatherdowns - Blue LED Minis with Blue LED Twinkle Lights
Wild Reserve - Green LED Minis with Green LED Twinkle Lights
France - Pink, Blue, and White LED
New France - Red, White, or Green Incandescent with Red, White, or Green Incandescent Twinkle Lights
Rhinefeld - Multi-Color LED
Oktoberfest - White LED Minis with White LED Twinkle Lights
Italy and Oktoberfest Ravines by Rhine River - Gold or White LED Minis with White Incandescent Twinkle Lights
San Marco - *Story to come*
DaVinci's Garden - Gold LED Minis with White Incandescent Twinkle Lights
Holiday Hills - Handpainted C7 Multi-color Incandescent with White Incandescent Twinkle Lights
Pompeii - Purple LED Minis with Teal Incandescent Twinkle Lights

Those were the light choices for the area's Christmas trees that decorate the pathways and forests. Essentially the pattern was a full head to toe complete color of Minis and then a smaller inner color of twinkle lights. The idea was that even though the trees can be one color, they have the twinkle hidden inside of them.

San Marco was a pain in a previous year. The Oak Island guy said they wanted all Gold LED Minis on all the trees in the area, so that was what was done. Then days before CT started, it turned out he made the mistake and they were all supposed to be white, so all those trees had to be stripped of their lights and redone. Only the trees not in planters were white, I think.

Also, during those last few days of setup in Holiday Hills, the whole area was broken glass everywhere. You would never guess how fragile those lights could be. I was surprised they cleaned up all the broken glass everywhere.

Next time you visit the park and appreciate those trees! Because near 20 regular team members that work with the guests work from 7 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon every Monday thru Saturday putting lights on those trees. They worked hard hours in the most dangerous of places in the park to make those trees look great.

There is even a special way trees are supposed to be wrapped with lights. Mostly it was loosely wrap each branch from the trunk of the tree and back, with one strand of those twinkle lights wrapped loosely around the tree's trunk. The trees in New France were the absolute worst. Since incandescents have terrible wattage or whatever, you could only plug three strands back to back. Where as the LEDs could all be plugged back to back. The easiest trees were in Holiday Hills and France. France you just literally spun the lights around the trees like regular, and Holiday Hills you had to wrap around the occasional branch but mostly have the light hung around like normal.

Most people who decorate those trees are so done with Christmas lights they don't decorate their own trees because of how exhausted and sick of wrapping lights on trees.

So with that said, now you know how they power their trees and how they decorate their trees.

EDIT: Sorry I didn't mean to overshadow CK's post. In response I found this in the comments below:

 

[morte615]

Yep and if you want to see just how quiet the generators are, there are a few that you can walk right up to and stand next to the fence and see how loud they are. The 3 I am thinking most of are:

Right next to the bumper cars in Octoberfest
Right next to the Bathrooms in New France
Right next to Mach Tower in Octoberfest

Those pretty much are the 3 sizes of generators they use from smallest to largest. I should type up a listing of all the generator locations that I remember from last year and see how many I miss

And I remember last year the massive amounts of broken glass all over Festa! I had a hand in creating the mess but we also made a point to clean as much as we could before leaving for the day. Those lights are amazingly fragile but I think some of the best looking lights in the park.

 

[Party Rocker]

I had a friend who worked with the penguins, said that these penguins have more frequent flier miles than most people and that is saying something for flightless birds Of course, I assume they are probably on a Southwest Airlines plane, since they are a sponsor.

 

[Jrbgwfan06]

I assume they are probably on a Southwest Airlines plane, since they are a sponsor.

They are. Airlines, and Airplanes are one of my other obsessions.

 

[Nicole]

SW must have more than one set? flock?...just looked it up: Waddle of penguin ambassadors.

The first time I met penguins at SW Orlando, we were taking a multi-animal tour. Unlike the exclusively penguin behind the scenes encounter, SW used their penguin ambassadors for that tour. The keepers said they traveled a lot as well. But I thought they lived in Orlando, not San Antonio. Of course I could have been wrong.

Anyway, looking at that picture on the plane, I keep thinking about penguin poop. I'm not usually that scattelogical, but if you have seen their habitats, you understand my concern.