Cedar Point Forums

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.

So is the trail closed around 8:30pm then? And you'd basically have to walk around the other way if you wanted to get around the Maverick area?

Yes. That is correct. Your quickest route though is to take the train...it takes much longer to walk around the Gemini midway back to Maverick than it does the 4 minute ride on the train which drops you off in front of Maverick

I went through Starlight again last night, and WOW it is just incredible. The Winter and Fall scenes are amazing. Everyone who walks through has a great time.

The pictures look really neat, and I can't wait to see it in person later this summer... It's things like this that really give theme parks character other than rides so I'm glad CF decided to do this at CP.... My biggest hope with this is that CP takes care of those lights and effects so it looks the same years from now... We all know how CP is pretty notorious for investing in cool lights and effects like this and then not maintaining them for the long term...

Considering this is probably their biggest addition to the park this year, they SHOULD keep the lights in good shape. It would be a huge waste of money and time if they didn't.

We went down the Starlight trail last Sunday night at park close.

Totally stunning is the best way to describe it, we were in awe of it and so was everyone else who was walking through.

A huge well done to all at Cedar Point for this amazing attraction.

cough cough awesome colorful lighting on millennium cough cough

I actually noticed that the lights on Millennium were a lot better than last year, and Power Tower is slowly getting there. I actually just noticed that all of the top changes colors now, and I don't know if all of the bottom does yet, but the first two weekends, I know that only half of the structure was lit up. And Millennium's lights may not be as bright was they were in 2000, but they are a lot more colorful this year, and they have all of the colors, and not just white. I forget if they moved this year though (I think so).

I think that this shows that the park is going to use the lights more this year, because there has been obvious progression on Power Tower as of tonight. I was there the 16th and the 23rd, and I will be back on the 9th through 14th, and things are looking great this year in my opinion.

Andy and I were invited to get a special backstage tour of Starlight Experience. We followed Lance Heal from Live E throughout the transformation of the entire show and what it takes to get things going. Amazingly, tonight's transition (the time it takes from closing the trail to open again) was 9 minutes, which is a new record for them. Last week the average was 12 minutes.

Throughout that time following Lance we were literally running back and fourth on the trail to get everything in place and turned on.

We'll have video, photos, and a second review posted (hopefully) tomorrow.

Side note: Many thanks to the CP Marketing team and their two summer interns, Jessica and Erin.

All I can say is WOW about the Starlight Experience. I bought the glasses for us and it was amazing with those. Even the ride home became fun as well, except for the driver.