Frequently Asked Questions
What is DAK Lights?
DAK Lights is an annual Halloween, Christmas, New Year's, and Valentine's Day light and music show in Pulaski County, VA. The lights are synchronized to music being broadcast over 103.9FM so you can
enjoy on the radio from the comfort of your vehicle.
- Halloween show runs nightly from early October (start date varies) through October 31st beginning at 7:00pm
- Christmas show runs nightly starting in November (start date varies) through December 25th beginning at 5:30pm
- New Year's light show runs nightly starting December 26th through early-January (end date varies) beginning at 5:30pm
- Valentine's Day light show runs nightly beginning in late-January (start date varies) through February 14th beginning at 5:30pm.
How much does it cost to visit DAK Lights?
Our light shows have been and always will be free of charge!
When are the show times each night?
A complete listing of our show schedule is available above in the Plan Your Visit section; times vary with each season. The show repeats continuously throughout the evening, so you
can start watching from any point and enjoy the show in whatever order you'd like! Check out our Now Playing section to see the estimated play times for each upcoming song
while the show is running.
How do I hear the music?
To keep noise to a minimum, the light show audio is broadcast over FM radio that you can enjoy from the comfort of
your car! Simply tune your radio to 103.9FM when you get close to the display.
When is the best time to visit?
DAK Lights is busiest on the weekends (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights), and every night during the week leading up to the holiday. Traffic is
usually highest from 7-9pm, so plan your visit either before or after that period for the best view.
Can I take pictures or videos to share?
Of course! We'd love for you to tag our pages (Facebook,
Twitter, Snapchat, etc)
as you share to help spread the word! Quick note: all the music we use during the show is covered under our license agreement which allow us to transmit over the radio.
If you choose to share video clips online, the platform (example: YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok) may mute the audio to restrict the transmission of copyrighted material.
How many lights are there in the display?
Our elements vary from season to season and year to year, so our light total varies. With the switch to LED bulbs, we now have over 50,000 lights and add more every year!
I bet this creates a crazy power bill.
That's not really a question, but we'll entertain it! Since we switched to LED bulbs in 2016, our power bill is generally less than $100 for the entire season.
Remember, not all the lights are on all the time... so we rarely reach peak power usage for more than 2-3 seconds.
How does this all work?
We use an open-source program called xLights that takes our vision and programming for a specific song and converts it into
individual commands that get sent to each and every lightbulb at a rate of 40 times per second. Each light bulb contains a single red, a single green, and a single blue light that,
when programmed together, can create over 16 million color combinations. It's mind-boggling to think how it all works, but understanding comes with many, many years of experience!
How do I build something like this on my house?
We started in 2010 by watching some online video tutorials and checking out some "Light Show Display" hardware. If you're interested in specifics,
we'd recommend starting with the Beginner RGB Pixels playlist from
Canispater Christmas' YouTube Channel. He dives into some details on controllers, hardware, lights, and software. The technology and options continuously improve each year, so you may notice differences from his videos recorded in 2018. Fair warning: this kind of
light show is not easy or cheap to setup; it requires a lot of patience and months of dedication to build, test, program, and install.
Have a question we haven't answered?
Let us know and we'll try to get you an answer right away!
