Holiday twinkle
Searcy teen programs Christmas-light display
Seth Brown has always been fascinated with lights, said his mother, Amy Smith, and that fascination led to a Christmas light show that has grown.
Brown, 15, a student at CrossPointe Preparatory School in Searcy, has a light show set up at his home, 1301 Wallis Drive.
“As far as I can remember, Seth has been fascinated with lights. … It started with flashlights,” Smith said. “It moved to Christmas lights. That’s how he’s sort of grown into it. He’s also had the opportunity to learn stage and technical lighting.”
Smith said it was probably eight years ago that Brown wanted to do outside Christmas lights.
“He’d do a few; then it’s just grown,” she said. “Really, in the past four or five years, or since my husband and I got married, it’s just taken off.”
This is the third year for the Smith Family Light Show, which includes music that is broadcast on an FM station.
“He’s learned more about the technical aspect to it and programming,” Smith said of Brown. “And my husband, [Allan Smith], has a lot of electrical and mechanical background. Together, it just kind of exploded.”
Prior to using the FM radio station, Smith said, Brown used a small machine that stuck in the ground and played music.
“The lights were plugged into it,” Amy Smith said. “There was no programming. That’s where it started. Then he got into
the heavy equipment, professional stuff.”
Brown said he first got the idea to want to do Christmas lights after seeing a YouTube video of a Christmas display in Colorado, shown by his grandfather Gene Parmenter.
“I think when I was either 3 or 4, he showed me the video,” Brown said. “I have always been fascinated by it. When I was 5, I made it my mission to do something like that. We’ve grown to actually be close to the video that my grandfather showed me.
“Ever since [I saw that video], I’ve worked to try to be like that. Once Allan came along, I was able to finally accomplish that.”
Brown said he researched how to set up an FM radio station to transmit the music for cars that come by the display.
“So many people in other areas have used radio stations,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to do it. After a bunch of researching finding out how to do it, it was more talked about.
“You can go on Amazon and buy a little box called an FM transmitter,” Brown said. “I just run an auxiliary for it and set it to what I want to broadcast. That’s what it sends it out as.”
Currently, the Smith Family Light Show is using 95.5 FM to broadcast the music.
“We test out the radio stations near our house and find one that is either really fuzzy or just isn’t being used,” Brown said. “We set our frequency to that.”
The display started Dec. 1 and will run through the second week of January.
“We have at least 50 cars a night,” he said. “Since we’ve added so much this year, more and more people have come by. It’s just word of mouth.
“When we had our grand opening, we expected 20 to 40 cars. We had a huge amount. We had 80, which was completely unexpected. We ran out of hot cocoa and candy canes. We ran out of everything the first night.”
Smith said some of the Christmas music is performed by the following artists: Guy Penrod, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, the Capital Kings, Go Fish and Pentatonix.
Brown uses a desktop computer to control the music and lights.
“It has nothing on it but the programs that I need to do the show because we have so much running off it,” he said. “That runs to my two light machines and all the moving lights and fog machines. It’s all coded and weaved into this big [display].
After Christmas, Brown said, his display will play hit music from 2017.
“I just started working on programming those songs,” he said. “Those will play after Christmas so everyone can enjoy them, too.”
The Smith Family Light Show has a Facebook page, Smith Family Light Show, and a website, www.smithlights.tk. The show starts at 5:30 and concludes at 10 each night.
According to the website, the team for the light show includes Brown, designer and programmer; Allan Smith, designer and head muscle; Kendall Bryan, programmer and muscle, who is also Brown’s best friend; Samuel Smith, muscle and Brown’s stepbrother; Lauren Smith, cleaning crew and hot-chocolate maker and Brown’s stepsister; and Amy Smith, producer.