Steve has the lights fantastic
ONE Southport householder has really brightened up his hous e for Chrismas. in A private house in Sidney Road, Southport, PR9 7EX displaying an American style Christmas light display.
Steve Henshall, of Sidney Road, has created an impressive display with light and sound.
He used more than 12,500 “pixels” to make a 7m high tree, two smaller trees, a 2m x 1m animated screen, singing faces, Christmas stocking, snowflakes, arches plus many other unusual props.
The pixels are small bulbs containing red, green and blue LEDs and the lights are computer controlled and synchronised to music.
Steve, 56, built the display with help from Peter, his neighbour, using pixels imported from China and bespoke lighting controllers from America and Australia.
The display has evolved, gown larger and more complex over the past three years with many hours spent sequencing the lights to music.
Steve said: “Producing this year’s display has pretty much taken all year with the new 7m tree being the most challenging.
“It’s odd thinking of Christmas during the long, hot summer we’ve had.”
He, his wife, Janice, and son, Tim, have all helped with the display.
He said: “My family are a bit bemused by all the activity but agree the finished show is breathtakingly beautiful and quite unique. Peter has been a great help, drilling thousands of holes for me.”
Steve is running a free competition to win a giant Freshfields goodie bag for children under-16 to guess the number of lights on the new tree.
The family has four rescue cats and are collecting donations for Freshfields Animal Rescue.
The show started on Saturday, December 8 with a party hosted by Sandgrounder Radio and closes on Tues 1st Jan with shows every hour and half-hour starting at 4pm and finishing at 9pm every night, hail, rain or shine.
Steve built the light control board from a kit bought from America.
The controllers can manipulate each of the coloured LEDs in each pixel individually, allowing complex patterns and colours to be displayed.
The show started three years ago with a relatively simple display featuring around 3,000 pixels, in year two it was stepped up to 7,000 and now 12,500, plus a snow machine and many lamps.