Popular holiday lighting display moving to Prairie Village municipal grounds

Tim Dorr's popular holiday music and lights show will be coming to the Prairie Village municipal grounds this season. The outlined area above shows the spot where Dorr will set up the display.

At least one of Prairie Village’s hot-button holiday lighting displays has found a happy home this year.

The city has worked out an agreement to allow Fontana Street resident Tim Dorr to move his popular synchronized music and holiday lights display onto city grounds.

After last year’s holiday season, Dorr announced that he would be shutting down the display at his home near 79th Street out of respect for a neighbor who found the traffic generated by the display stressful.

“I was really bummed out,” Dorr said. “I really was.”

But Dorr and the city began talking about the possibility of moving the display — which is secular — onto municipal grounds. Mayor Ron Shaffer announced at the council meeting Monday that the city was granting Dorr a special use permit to put his display up on the land north of the lap pools. Shaffer thanked council members Michael Kelly and Andrew Wang for their work getting negotiations going to bring the display onto city grounds.

Dorr and a team of family and friends will begin installing the display Nov. 14. He said it should take four to five days to finalize the installation, which will include 60,000 lights and 50 channels of computer controls to manage the synchronization with the music.

“We’re adding something new this year called ‘cosmic color ribbons,’” Dorr said. “I’ll just leave it at that. It will blow your socks off to say the least.”

As in years past, Dorr will accept donations from people who visit the display. This year, those donations will go to the Prairie Village Municipal Foundation and Heartland Habitat for Humanity.

The display will run from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve.

There has been no word from the council recently on what, if anything, may change with Mike Babick’s Falmouth Street display this season.

(If you’ve never seen Dorr’s display, or are just looking for an appetizer, here’s a taste:)

Nutrocker – 2010 Dorr Christmas Display from Tim Dorr on Vimeo.