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Holiday light displays opening this month

Dave Smith (right) and Ray Marshall adjusts a few of the million-plus lights that are being set up at the Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park in Hamilton. The display will take up to 7 weeks to prepare for and feature lighting displays covering more than 100 acres of land. The Light show, which has been voted The best show in the Tri-state for the past 4 years, will run from Nov. 20th - Jan 1.

photo by Martin Wheeler Dave Smith (right) and Ray Marshall adjusts a few of the million-plus lights that are being set up at the Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park in Hamilton. The display will take up to 7 weeks to prepare for and feature lighting displays covering more than 100 acres of land. The Light show, which has been voted The best show in the Tri-state for the past 4 years, will run from Nov. 20th - Jan 1.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Ken Standafer replaces tape holding the lights and wiring on a tree display Wednesday, Nov. 4, in the storage barn for Light Up Middletown displays at Smith Park in Middletown.

Staff photo by Nick Graham Ken Standafer replaces tape holding the lights and wiring on a tree display Wednesday, Nov. 4, in the storage barn for Light Up Middletown displays at Smith Park in Middletown.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Photos: Pyramid Hill light show preparation

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By Eric Robinette, Staff Writer Updated 7:53 AM Monday, November 9, 2009

Making it begin to look a lot like Christmas often means making sure Christmas doesn’t look the same every year.

To that end, the organizers of Light Up Middletown and Holiday Lights on the Hill at Pyramid Sculpture Park in Hamilton work not just to put up lots of lights, but to add something new annually.

Pyramid Hill’s display opens Nov. 20, Middletown’s opens Nov. 27.

“We like to shake things up. We have a house with Santa Claus stuck in the chimney,” said Dave Smith, the field supervisor of the crew that puts the lights up at the sculpture park.

Another new display is a skyline, which isn’t supposed to be any particular skyline, but Smith did get the idea for it from watching the TV show “Frasier,” which had the skyline of Seattle in its title.

In Middletown, there will be some new displays at the entrance, including double candy canes, and many of the lights themselves will be different with the use of the brighter LED bulbs in the tunnel entrance, said Barney Strassburger, the head of the “grandpa gang” crew that sets up Light Up Middletown.

Strassburger goes around Smith Park every year, putting some of the light displays in different locations, just to mix up the look a little, he said.

Asked how many lights were in Light Up Middletown, Strassburger said “I don’t know how you could ever really estimate that,” pointing to just one bucket that he said had 1,000 lights in it.

Smith, on the other hand, said he knew the exact number of lights in Pyramid Hill: 1,258,004.

Or so he says.

“I came up with that number, and I’m sticking to it,” he said.

At Light Up Middletown, a crew of about 25 men known as the “Grandpa Gang” sets up the holiday display each year in Smith Park. At Holiday Lights on the Hill at Pyramid Hill in Hamilton, it takes exactly five. Holiday Lights on the Hill covers about 70 of the sculpture park’s 200-plus acres. Light Up Middletown covers almost all of Smith Park.

“It takes hard work and perseverance,” said Smith. “We start at 7:30 and work until 5 seven days a week.” Smith’s crew has been working on the display since September.

“We’re getting it down to such a science working seven days a week rain or shine,” Smith said, adding that the trickiest part of the display is not the lights themselves but the electrical hook-ups in the park.

Last year. “We blew a whole box at the ticket booth - we have all the traffic coming on (Ohio) 128 and the lady (greeting visitors) has a flashlight saying ‘Welcome to the light show,’” Smith said.

What sets Pyramid Hill apart from other light displays, aside from the sculpture park setting, is the depth at which the lights are placed.

“Most light shows go to a couple of rows of candy canes and that’s it. It takes a good half hour to get through our show,” Smith said.

But there’s much more to working on a light display than just setting up the lights. There’s also the matter of repairing the lights, which can fall victim to age, wind and sometimes vandals.

Last year on Christmas Eve high winds blew down Middletown’s large Santa’s workshop display, and just this past week, vandals knocked over the hot air balloon and butterfly displays, said Strassburger, the head of the “grandpa gang” that works on the lights.

Then there’s the matter of simply maintaining the lights. This year, the grandpa gang has replaced many of the aging bulbs in the decade-old attraction.

“Part of the paint is peeling off. The ambers were terrible. We’ve never done this before. We’ve gone through all the lights that are a C7 size,” he said, referring to a medium-sized light.

In the future, the gang will also add more LED lights to the display, which are brighter but use less energy, Strassburger said.

Strassburger’s brother Buster was working on applying new adhesive tape to some of the displays.

“All we know is work, work, work,” he joked. “The weather’s rough on them. We have to do some repairing this year.”

And work isn’t limited to the light displays. Light Up Middletown’s Santa House, where kids have their picture taken with jolly old Saint Nick, received insulation and carpeting this year to make it at least a little warmer there.

“It got so cold in there last year, the printer for the pictures wouldn’t work,” Strassburger said.

Still, however many long hours are worked or how many repairs are made, the gleam of the lights makes it all worthwhile, Smith said.

“Out on the lake we have these clear mini-lights .., a lot of times the lake freezes over with the light reflecting up. It’s beautiful,” he said.

How to go

What: Holiday Lights on the Hill

When: 6 to 10 p.m. nightly Nov. 20 to Jan. 3

Where: Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park, 1763 Hamilton Cleves Road, Hamilton

Cost: One passenger: $10; two to five passengers $15 Monday through Thursday; six to 10 passengers $30 Monday through Thursday, $40 Friday through Sunday; 11 to 25 passengers $75.

What: Light Up Middletown

When: 6 to 10 p.m. Nov. 27 to Dec. 31

Where: Smith Park, 500 Tytus Ave., Middletown

Cost: Admission by donation

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What about going green ? Save electric ?
What a waste. Harry is taking the people of Hamilton to the cleaners.

go green
2:47 PM, 11/9/2009

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Dear G.Gang,

Thank You All!! The lights at Smith Park
are always beautiful. My family enjoys going every
Christmas. You can see all the love and hard work
that you all give so freely. Please, don't ever stop
it wouldn't be Christmas without them.

D.T.
2:47 PM, 11/9/2009

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We all need to go to the Pyramid Hill display, Harry Wilks needs the money from us to pay for the repairs to his building facade on High Street

Help Harry
2:42 PM, 11/9/2009

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Why are we comparing Middletowns lights display to Hamiltons? Why the comparison?

Comparing
1:57 PM, 11/9/2009

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Hey Silverback, that may be the difference between 25 and 5 workers and the time it takes to build the sets.

Gerald Wood
10:56 AM, 11/9/2009

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