Cedar Point Forums

Yesterday I was at the park, and I got to check out Starlight Experience. It was a lot more than what I was expecting! There are a lot more lights than I noticed during the day, and it was very bright at night. There was fog in the Millennium Tunnel, and everything was really colorful. There was even falling snow! This was something I will probably always go through at night to get to the other side of the park, and I would recommend that anyone should walk through. Did anyone else get to see it yet?

Yeah, it was sweet! I was eating dippin' dots and the snow fell in my cup D:

^Yeah, one got in my eye and my contact was blurry

It sounds awesome! I cannot wait to experience it!

I saw part of it on Friday while on Millennium. The blue lights looked amazing and I can not wait to walk through it.

I'll be there tonight taking photos (and hopefully video), so I'll get things posted tomorrow.

Saw it last night too -- took lots of photos -- I have no idea how to post them here...This is a link to all of my CP 2009 photos so far, which includes photos from the Starlight Experience...

http://ronannarbor.smugmug.com/gallery/ ... 0321_gq756

My thoughts? It started way too late -- CP's idea of opening at "dusk" was 9:15 pm...it took them a long time to set up, I was standing right in front of the MF tunnel, and there was lots of grumbling from people trying to get from Millenium Force to Maverick and vice versa when they weren't allowed to pass through the Trail for a half hour. The security guards at the MF tunnel were having trouble holding people back -- they had half the tunnel chained off, the other half open from the many people passing through the other way. Eventually, they got tired of the harassing they were getting from the teens who wanted to pass through and resorted to lines like "Take it up with management, not me" and "Go around, there's nothing I can do about it, I just work here"...

It will definately change the "tour plan" for people incorporating MF or Maverick late at night -- you'll have to take the train from one to the other.

For those who don't want to brave the crowds and walk after they have been walking all over the park all day and just want to go home, can ride the train -- you will see 80 percent of the lights from the train between Frontiertown and the Midway (Note: you can only see them on the return trip, not the trip TO Frontiertown). You can see the floats that they use for the Peanuts characters from the train under MF in the storage area on the way to Frontiertown.

The lights are pretty. It's worth a walk through, but I'm not sure once you've seen it you are going to go out of your way to go see it again on a return visit. It's pretty similar to the types of displays you see at zoos across America at Christmas time. I did like that the lights were themed to the different seasonal holidays (blue and white for winter; orange for fall; Green and Purple for spring, etc...)

My overall reaction -- it's pretty. I've seen it, don't need to see it again...and more importantly, they need to find a way to set it up in less than 10 minutes, not 30 minutes; and they need to start it a good hour earlier at the same time all the other park lights come up.

I do think that it could be set up in less time, but I think that things will get a little bit better later in the year. I was riding another ride when they were setting it up, so it wasn't a problem for me. But the chaos you described was surprising for me... I didn't think it would be that bad. I really liked the fog in the tunnel too... that had to be my favorite part. I walked through the tunnel like eight times Brought back a lot of nice memories from last year!

Sounds pretty fun and I can't wait to experience it myself. Hopefully I'll be able to go in 2 weeks.

I'm sure the grumbling will go down as people learn the new system -- not for nothing, I saw nothing written anywhere that the Frontier Trail would close down for a half hour prior to the opening each evening -- although I did eventually find it tucked away in the "Show Brochure" for the day, the blue brochure they print every week that they don't include with the map, and that you have to look for if you are interested.

From that point of view, Cedar Point did a bad job explaining how the process works. But once word of mouth is out, it should go more smoothly from night to night.

Starlight Experience is amazing! Everyone needs to check it out when they visit.

The experience is still not at 100%, as several of the more 'technical' effects are not fully functional, but will be shortly. I hope to get photos up tonight.

Full coverage at www.thepointol.com

I'll have a review posted tomorrow afternoon hopefully.

It looks very good. I'll be sure to check it out when I go in a few weeks.

It was very different from what I had expected. They did a great job with this and this is going to keep the trail and the back of the park busier than it has been in past years.

Where'd the $1M dollars go? Did they go to Target for all the LED lights they had in stock I'll have to wait for the full SFX. But I really wasn't blown away. It was interesting. It opened too late. The Snoopy Winter display seemed to be the most popular. The music was OK low key so as not to ruin the quietness of the Frontier Trail. The snow SFX was small but kind of fun. They need a fog machine for the Great Pumpkin display. Some gobos focused on the ground would be good.

Several of the major effects were not on last night, so I recommend checking it out next time you're back at the park. As far as the million dollars goes, there are over 1 million LED lights, so think of it as about a dollar a light, which is pretty good.

I also need to see if my HalloWeekends 3D glasses will work for the star effects I've heard about. They sell 3D glasses on a cart for $1 between the Red garter and MF tunnel.

Since I am in the business of LED light manufacturing I am wondering if anyone has any info on who the lights were manufactured by?

I can honesty say that if there are really a million lights then the cost would exceed a million dollars. A dollar a piece is not realistic. And then you have to include the drivers to drive the lights, controllers to change the color and pattern as well as the labor cost associated with the installation.

I can only say, now living in Thailand I truly miss the fun times I had at Cedar Point - 'Amusement Park of the World!!'

According to the only press release Cedar Fair released, they stated "about 1 million lights" and that the experience would cost "approximately 1 million dollars to purchase and install".

Cedar Fair isn't going to release the actual numbers, nor the contractors that did the job -- so we'll never really know the true amount or the true cost.

From what I saw on opening on Saturday night, there are NOT a million lights in that display. But it sounds good. Also -- much of this is not free-standing lighting. Some of it is ropes of christmas lights which certainly did not cost 1 dollar per light...some of it is attached to mesh netting that is thrown over items and staple-gunned onto the trees or bushes. Some of it is indeed carefully hand-installed and took some degree of creation. But there are several companies in this area that do this work for companies at Christmas time and special events year round.

Still, whatever the true numbers are, it's pretty, and it will be pleasing for visitors to stroll through there at night, at the end of a long day when you want to linger a bit longer and just enjoy the ambiance.

From what I have heard the show was designed by Trad A Burns. He has been designing for Cedar Point since 1989 and is a freelance lighting designer. If you google his name it seems to be that he works pretty much all over the country, but has done a lot for Cedar Fair over the years.