What Features Should You Look for in Outdoor Holiday Lighting?

Outdoor commercial holiday lighting is a design priority for most retail businesses. Exterior lighting attracts customers, ensuring a successful holiday season. It brings in foot traffic and enhances design aesthetics.

Businesses must consider various outdoor holiday lighting features when curating their displays. Safety, attractiveness, and energy efficiency are just some of the essential characteristics. This article will take a deep dive, ensuring you are prepared to create an outdoor display that attracts and impresses.

Outdoor holiday lighting is a significant consideration in any commercial display for the following reasons.

Do you feel happier when everything is lit up during the holiday season? There’s a science behind these emotions. Here are some things to consider:

Commercial holiday lighting makes your brand stand out. People drawn in by your lights will remember your store and continue visiting throughout the year.

You can make your shop even more memorable by including branded elements in your decorations. For example, you may:

People who shop at your store and are impressed by your display may take pictures and post them on social media. They may use hashtags, mention your store, or include a location, helping build brand awareness. By using branded elements in your display, you can increase the likelihood that this will occur.

For example, you may provide a branded photobooth or selfie station, ensuring your brand will appear in pictures. People may also take a picture of themselves in front of a tree or a sign with branded elements.

Any outdoor display can be impressive. However, a business must include outdoor holiday lighting features that ensure their display is safe, durable, attractive, and convenient. Here are some to consider.

Your outdoor lights must be weather-resistant to ensure they hold up well in various environments. Here are some characteristics to consider.

Commercial-grade holiday lights are high-performance solutions designed for more demanding commercial environments. They typically offer the following characteristics:

Businesses often choose LED commercial Christmas lights over their incandescent counterparts as they use about 75% less energy and last 25 times longer, leading to significant savings on cost and energy use. LEDs help businesses increase profitability during this crucial time of year. This energy-efficient holiday lighting also produces an attractive display with increasingly advanced technology.

Businesses can achieve a customized design with the following lighting effects:

• RGB (Red, Green, Blue) Lights: These lights switch between spectrums, allowing you to achieve a wide range of colors.
• Lighting Effects: Choose lights that slowly fade in and out to achieve effects like fades, flashes, waves, twinkling, and fireworks.
• Individual Bulb Control: With these systems, each bulb can be programmed independently to achieve a different effect.

The holidays are one of the busiest times of the year. Business owners can’t spend much time installing outdoor LED holiday lights, so they need systems that are easy to install. Look at the packaging for installation instructions and read reviews before purchasing to ensure you won’t have issues.

The lighting you choose should also be scalable, to work with your design as it grows. Scalable holiday lighting systems may feature the following elements:

• Classic Designs: Choose classic designs in neutral colors that will work well as your design evolves.
• Ensure Compatible Electronics: Use electronics that easily attach to other systems.
• Modular Pieces: Include modular pieces such as garlands that can easily be shortened or lengthened.

Various safety certifications ensure lights are weatherproof. They include:

• UL or ETL: These safety certifications indicate the lights have been tested and are safe for outdoor use.
• IP ratings indicate how well the lights can withstand water and dust. A higher rating means better protection.
• NEMA 4X: This enclosure rating signifies high protection against environmental hazards.

Outdoor lighting automation systems can save time and money while making your design look spectacular. Here are some options to consider.

• Remote Power On and Off: Smart outdoor holiday lights will power on and off automatically or allow you to control them from a remote location. Your lights will always be on at night, ensuring you keep up with the competition. They will also power down at a specific time, so you don’t waste money and energy.
• Programmable Christmas Lights: Many light systems can be programmed to blink on and off and can even be synchronized to music, ensuring an attractive and interactive display.
• Customizable Scenes: Some systems are so advanced that you can easily program them to produce certain scenes. For example, you may have them programmed with a ‘cozy scene’ or ‘party scene’, ensuring they create the desired effect.

Various outdoor holiday lighting features ensure versatility and customization, including:

• Customizable colors and lighting effects allow you to produce the desired aesthetics
• Programmable lighting can program lights to flash and fade
• Branded display elements will increase your marketing efforts
• Scalable designs scale as your display evolves

Hopefully, you’ve learned a lot from these outdoor holiday lighting installation tips. Here are a few mistakes to avoid to ensure a seamless presentation.

You may be tempted to use indoor lights for your outdoor displays. After all, these lights are less expensive, and they feature appealing designs. However, there are various key reasons why you should avoid using indoor lighting for outdoor applications, including the following:

• Safety Hazards: Indoor lights are not weatherproof or as durable as outdoor lights. They risk safety hazards and will not hold up well in weather events.
• Brightness: Outdoor lights are designed to be bright and appear well in dark conditions. Indoor lights are not as bright and will not attract foot traffic as effectively.
• Voided Warranties: Using indoor lights in outdoor applications may invalidate their warranty, making them ineligible for repairs and replacements.

Overloading circuits is never a good idea, as it presents the following risks:

• Fire Hazards: Overloaded circuits can overheat, damaging the insulation and increasing fire risk. It can also produce sparks that can ignite nearby flammable materials.
• Damaged Components: Overloading sockets can produce excess voltage that can destroy electrical components.
• Tripped Breakers: Breakers may trip when sockets are overloaded. Although this safety measure prevents fires, it can be annoying and disrupt aesthetics.

Although overloading circuits is always dangerous, it is particularly hazardous in outdoor environments with an increased shock hazard.

Decorators should be aware of the difference between warm and cool lights, as follows:

• Warm Light (2200K-3000K): Ideal for creating warm and cozy environments.
• Cool Light (4000K04500K): Best suited as task lighting.

Here’s what happens when you try to combine the two:

• Aesthetic and Color Distortions: The lights will combine to create an unbalanced look. Furthermore, they can wash out each other’s colors and produce an unpleasant contrast.
• Viewing Displeasure: People who see this light combination may experience eye strain and visual discomfort, detracting from the pleasant experience.
• Uneven Lighting: The combination will produce uneven lighting, which may diminish the appeal of your displays.

Businesses spend a lot of time and money acquiring commercial property and holiday decor, often finding they have no protection if it breaks. They purchase products from brands that provide no or inadequate warranty and replacement terms, so they are out of luck when something goes wrong. This unfortunate situation can even occur if the product is broken the second it’s extracted from the packaging.

You can avoid this by choosing a company with extensive warranty and replacement terms. Typically, these terms will be listed on the website or the product. However, you can call the company directly if you have difficulty locating this information.

Once you acquire your commercial Christmas decorations, you only have one thing left to do—hang them. The following tips will help you create the ideal design.

• Facades: Decorate the face of the building by hanging exterior Christmas lights for buildings from the roof to the foundation.
• Rooflines: Decorating rooftops provides symmetry and ensures your building will be visible from elevated locations. Consider placing lights along your roof’s edges and eaves.
• Entrances: Hang display elements in your building’s entryway to build excitement when guests enter. Outline the doorway in lights. Place a wreath on the door to welcome customers.

Extend the custom lighting displays beyond the doorway into other exterior areas of your business. For example, you may light up your:

• Walkways: To build excitement, light walkways leading to your building. This will enhance the aesthetic and prevent tripping hazards.
• Driveways: Businesses with driveways can illuminate them to attract customers further. Consider placing lights around the exterior of your driveway and in select safe areas. The additional lighting can also help prevent accidents.
• Courtyards: Courtyards are standard hotel features and may exist in other commercial spaces. Lighting them up enhances the ambiance, spreading the cheer throughout the property.

Businesses with trees, bushes, and other landscape features may consider decorating them to produce a ‘multi-Christmas tree’ appeal. Trees and bushes can be decorated like any other Christmas tree, complete with lights, ornaments, and even a topper. You may even consider decorating other vegetation and manmade landscaping elements.

Commercial holiday lighting is a necessary marketing strategy. However, you must ensure safe outdoor holiday lights that offer a professional aesthetic. Failure to do so can damage your company's reputation.

With so much at stake in outdoor environments, you may consider hiring a professional decorating service. Dekra-Lite is a recommended choice.

We have been producing large-scale commercial displays since 1987. Our company offers a wide range of durable outdoor Christmas lights and decorations. We have everything you need to make this year’s display a success.

Contact us when you’re ready to embark on your commercial decorating adventure.

Commercial outdoor lights are built for more demanding conditions than residential ones. They feature higher-quality components and more robust materials. Outdoor lights also tend to shine brighter than indoor lights.

LED lights are reliable for outdoor use because they use a highly durable epoxy lens instead of glass. This energy-saving Christmas lighting can withstand various weather conditions. However, not all LEDs are rated for outdoor use. Ensure you purchase ones that stand up well to outdoor environments for optimal outcomes.

It’s best to start planning your outdoor lighting setup early. If you wait too long, you may be unable to find the decorations you want or hire professional services in time for the holiday season.

Many businesses begin preparing for the holiday after Halloween, but you can beat the rush by planning in late summer. You may even want to plan throughout the year to ensure you can take advantage of off-season bargains.

There are various outdoor lighting trends to look forward to this holiday season. They include:

• Sustainable options such as LEDs, solar-powered lights, and DIY solutions
• Smart lighting is trending for its potential to add convenience while saving time and money
• Retro styles- almost any decade will do
• Rope lights, string lights, and light tape, which offer optimal versatility
• Illuminated pathways that welcome customers and add ambiance

Smart lighting allows you to automate your holiday lighting schedule. Your lights will turn on and off at a specific time each day, ensuring you are ready for shoppers, saving energy, and preventing you from annoying your neighbors. You may:

• Set your timer to turn lights on at sunset and turn them off at sunrise
• Program lights to turn on when it gets dark and turn off when the store closes
• Have lights turn on when it gets dark and turn off sometime after closing, perhaps around midnight. This system keeps your store visible to people who may encounter it after closing without using excessive energy.