The 16th Annual Holiday Lights Show

This morning is fairly warm although the incoming drizzle will becoming freezing rain this afternoon and the temperatures will be very frigid tomorrow and thru most of the week. I hope Mother Nature lightens up a bit for the start of our 16th Annual Holiday Lights Show when it opens for the public on Friday, December 17th (5-8:30pm). Larry and Bill are at work today doing some tweaking and path touch-up out in the show as we have to turn some of it on for a rental tonight. I'd like to mention that all four photos in this blog are of this years' light show and were taken by Dan Lassiter of the Janesville Gazette and are provided courtesy of the Janesville Gazette. I'll be promoting this event live on NBC 15 up in Madison early on Saturday, December 18th and our marketing push will be in full swing next week. Understanding that Mother Nature can be quite fickle and is beyond our control, we hope for some nice nights and manageable snowfall to make the show look nice and bring in our goal of 10,000 attendees. This is an important fundraiser and the last of our 2010 budget year. Funds from this event pay our winter bills.

The show started back in 1994 and was the idea of Kim Emerson, our Executive Director back then. This predates our new visitors center and involved indoor entertainment and snacks in the Rath Environmental Center and a poinsettia display in our solarium. This became very congested quickly as our facility was about 10% the size of what it is now. My understanding is that the first four years included about 10,000 lights in a short loop out through the English cottage garden and thru what we call the North American Garden, just east of the visitors center. Of course this event became more popular and when I started in July of 1998, I had experience with a lights show at Fernwood Botanic Garden in Niles, MI. At Fernwood (105 acre botanic garden and natural area), I was involved with all aspects of the set-up which was just as laborious as it is for RBG. We used to brag that we had 1 million lights at Fernwood! I now doubt that as I'm sure it was even less than what we have up at RBG (300,000). Who's going to count anyway? Well, I brought along (stole) the ideas of half gallon, milk jug luminaries, dangling icicle lights and staking up temporary trees with lights for effect. The show at RBG, in the winter of 1998, then became a different beast. The route was enhanced and the scale became 10x what it was the year previous.

We began utilizing the talents of Randy Menzel and his father (Brodhead, WI) to make custom, rebar displays for the show. The coneflower above (left) is just one example of over 100 custom displays that these gentlemen made for us with rebar frames and rope lighting. The candy cane to the right is made with pvc piping. In the past, we have rotated these displays and only put out 1/2 to 2/3 of them each year in different locations. Well, this year, Randy fixed all those in need of repair and we have almost 90% of them out in the gardens this year. LP Tree Service has been involved for over 12 years with their hanging of icicle lights from their bucket trucks ("cherry pickers"). The facts/figures that we have listed in our press releases include 300,000 lights, 100 displays, 40 decorated obelisks, 150 decorated white pine trees, 200 dangling icicles, 2,000 milk jug luminaries and 6 miles of extension cords. I think these figures are fairly accurate for 2010 although to be honest, we didn't think the show would be this extensive when we started setting it up in October. However, it gained a life of its own and coupled with a warm November, became our biggest and best.

Most visitors to the show don't realize that we start testing lights in August on rainy days and by early October, are ready to start setting out lights. Marianne and Janice are our testing and repair experts. Janice decorated all the obelisks with lights too. This is double duty for obelisks that had function out in the gardens during the growing season as well. Marianne is responsible for the luminaries and with help from Jenny each year, gets them set out and ready to go. She also has become a huge help for me in regards to running cords. Larry sets up the "pavilion" area and arches and helps with a lot of the signage, blockades and troubleshooting. Larry and I split the nights of the show so at least one of us is around to deal with any problems. Barring wet weather, we should be in good shape this year as Tom C. really got our "electrical affairs" in order. Big John helped too this year but we keep Little Jerry as a 100% gardener so some gardening is getting done. Kay and Robin helped free up our time this fall with their top notch fall clean-up efforts. However, I can't say enough about Marv and Terry who start putting out lights and displays earlier than anyone else and put in a SOLID six weeks getting things ready to go. The guys decorate all the hedges and put up most of the icicle lights. They secure the stakes for all the trees (and secure the trees too!) and this year were given creative license to arrange and place displays. They did a dynamite job as usual. We have been adding about 5,000 LED lights each year (not this year - short on funds...) and they offer the benefits of energy savings and a very bright look. The only drawback I see with these lights is that they don't generate heat which standard lights will do, thereby melting off potentially obscuring snow. The entire show is tested and tweaked multiple times before the show is open and thus far for this display, the show has stayed on nicely.

This event also includes live entertainment each night, refreshments and a display of quilts from the Rock Valley Quilters Guild. There is a quilt raffle and I believe a raffle for a G-scale, model circus train. The Southern Wisconsin Garden Railway Society will again be involved (9th year in a row) with a wonderful train set-up with different trains running each night. Their set-up will also include a gingerbread house display that was part of a fundraiser arranged by ECHO. The gift shop will have neat items too. Santa will make some appearances too. The first 500 families to the show will receive a free pair of Holospex glasses which accentuate all the twinkle lights. I tried the glasses myself and it was really neat. What is interesting is that the LED lights are unaffected by the glasses. Oh well, it's still pretty neat! Check out www.rotarybotanicalgardens.org for more event details and the entertainment schedule.

Most visitors assume that the electric bill is enormous for the entire show. It's important to mention that we only run it for 5 hour periods of time over 13 scheduled nights. Granted there are some rental obligations and test nights as well. The LED lighting has helped with lessening the power draw but overall, we've estimated that the show is about $900 in electricity in its entirety. Alliant Energy has been very supportive of the show as a past sponsor and grant source. Check out our website as well for all the event sponsors that help make this event happen.

On Monday, January 3rd, we'll start taking down the show. My co-workers and our volunteers involved with takedown would respond, "What do you mean WE?". I have the excuse of seed ordering so avoid the cold and gain my fifteen pounds of winter weight at my computer. We dabbled with extending the show in to January for the public with minimal turnout. While we've also left the show up later in January for rental parties, etc., we have nothing currently scheduled for 2011. If the weather is ok and we don't have too much snow and ice, we'll methodically take it down and we have a very nice system for getting everything condensed and put away. This process can vary from 2 weeks (our world record) or more likely, 6-8 weeks. We actually have had to wait to pull stakes and frozen cords out in mid March! LP Tree Service will shred the white pines for mulch that will go out in the gardens. Overall, it is our most labor intensive event but the original intent remains the same: "To bring visitors to the garden in winter and create a family experience (both inside and out) for everyone to remember". We also need to make some spare change to pay my six figure salary.