The people behind the show

Meet the people behind the pumpkins.

We’re Joe and Chris—the two people most likely to be outside on Falcon with a headlamp, a zip tie, and a plan that sounded much smaller yesterday.

Joe’s the one who has always been fascinated by lights, wiring, engineering, and “just one more controller.” Chris is the one who says things like, “Maybe let’s measure it first?” and “Do we really need a fourth Raspberry Pi?” Spoiler alert: Joe’s answer is always a resounding YES.

One house. A whole lot of neighbors.

Lights on Falcon started as a simple idea: bring a little joy to the block, make the season brighter, and help neighbors feel more connected. Then it grew into neighbors building arches, families gathering, kids dancing, and a shared sense of “wow… this is our community.”

Halloween gives us an excuse to get a little weird together. The people who show up are what make it worth doing.

Built by hand. Shared with the block.

Every prop, every cable, every custom mount carries a little of our personality. Joe has a hard time finding a retail product he doesn’t want to modify. The show grows each year, evolves each season, and occasionally tests the limits of what Chris is willing to tolerate. Somehow, it always turns into a reason for neighbors to gather.

Thanks for being part of it. Truly.

A closer look

What’s behind the glow?

A few of the things that make Lights on Falcon tick.

The lights

A lot of small lights, carefully arranged, and a very large number of zip ties.

Pixels with personality

Individually addressable LEDs give each light its own part in the show. They’re arranged across arches, roofs, fences, windows, and anything else that will politely hold still. Each pixel is its own tiny lightbulb with its own tiny opinions.

Power behind the pumpkins

Power supplies, carefully distributed wiring, cooling, and monitoring keep the lights fed. Or, as Chris calls it, “Joe’s emotional support voltage.”

The music

The music gives the lights their rhythm—and gives us all a reason to stay for one more song.

FM sound from your car

The show has an FM transmitter so you can listen from your car. Check the digital signage along the street for the current frequency; it can change.

Outdoor speakers

Look for the green sign along the sidewalk and press the speaker button to listen. The live site describes five-minute speaker sessions that can extend through the current song. Follow the on-site controls and notices for the current behavior.

Sound on your phone

When phone listening is available, the audio bar appears on the show-control page while music is playing. Network and carrier delays can affect synchronization. The existing show controls remain the place to check availability.

The building and fixing

Planning, wiring, testing, fixing, and occasionally asking why that worked yesterday.

Building, rebuilding, and late nights

Measured, cut, coded, soldered, wired, configured, tested, improved, and loved by hand. “Uptime” also includes Joe tweaking something at 2 a.m. Chris would like the record to show he tries.

The technology

Controllers and carefully timed sequences bring the lights and music together.

Controllers and choreography

Light controllers turn the sequences into precisely timed changes across the display. DDP carries the pixel data over the show network. Think of an over-caffeinated conductor leading a sparkly orchestra.

The computers behind the curtain

Our Proxmox environment supports the website, show routing, APIs, viewer interactions, scheduling, and debugging. The computers do the quiet work. We do the sweating.

Small computers. Big jobs.

Raspberry Pis handle show playback, network services, audio routing, custom triggers, and show state. NVMe storage is part of the setup because SD cards couldn’t keep up with Joe’s ambition.

Wiring, fiber, and the network

Power cables, data lines, fiber uplinks, managed switches, and a dedicated show network connect the display. Every cable has been run, tested, zip-tied, labeled, and occasionally sworn at. Most homes have Wi-Fi. We have diagrams that sometimes scare Chris.

LightLab Community Arts Foundation

The glow goes beyond Falcon.

Lights on Falcon is a community project of LightLab Community Arts Foundation.

Lights on Falcon sparked something bigger: using creativity, technology, and community to bring people together beyond the holidays. This little corner of Falcon is part of that bigger purpose.