CLEARWATER - This week on our Holiday themed Fun Friday we went to the Clearwater Light Show!

This is the 8th year George Simmons has decked out his house with lights and put on an elaborate light show.

The lights are synchronized to various popular Christmas music such as Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer and Jingle Bells to create an experience that both mesmerizes the eyes and ears of those who watch the show.

Simmons says some of the skills needed to create and manage the operations of the light show are musical and electrical skills.

Nearly 70,000 lights are hung from Simmons house and are displayed in his yard but that number has been decreasing throughout the years. Switching from incandescent mini-lights to LED mini-lights gives Simmons more options for controlling the color of the lights. With being able to control what color each light is he no longer has to use a string of only blue lights he can use a string of LED lights and decide what color he needs them to be during each part of the show.

Running the light show is surprisingly inexpensive. Simmons says it is around $50 to operate it all season. He says although there are many lights displayed only a small portion of them are on at a time making the cost to operate very little.

Simmons describes his passion for lights as a hobby, "some people fish and some people hunt and some people play golf and some people go camping and things like that, I play with Christmas lights all year."

The Clearwater Lights Show runs nightly at 5:30 p.m. through New Year's Eve. The show is free to watch but spectators are encouraged to make a cash donation to the Clearwater Food Shelf.

Fun Friday CG PR
loading...

 

 

More From 98.1 Minnesota's New Country