My Largest Christmas Light Displays

Calgary Tower
(animated.gif created from original About Calgary animation)

I refer to the Calgary and Edmonton TELUS Office Tower Christmas lights as "My Lights" because I was the one in the AGT Real Estate Electrical Design department in 1988 (before AGT became TELUS) that designed the electrical portion of these two large animated light displays.

Two others from Architectural and Structural Design and another from Public Relations developed the tree and candle designs and a method to install these light displays each year on the 35 story buildings.

Edmonton Tower

I am going to let you in on a little secret. The light displays were not really supposed to be animated. I believe the instructions were "to provide switched circuits so that the trees could be sequenced on". I heard 'sequenced' and assumed 'automatically sequenced' (what else?) Hey, this sounded like fun, and while we were at it, I suggested "why not design and install two red flame patterns on the Calgary tower that I could quickly alternately switch on to simulate a flickering candle flame". We were well into the project when I was informed that each tree only required a manually operated on/off switch for control (how dull!) to allow the trees to be possibly used in conjunction with fund raising ( where trees would be switched on as donations were received until, when the donations goal was reached, all the trees would be lit ). By this time however, the design team was so excited about the flickering candle flame and 'real' animated displays that we were not about to turn back so convinced management that this was the only way to go and carried on.

After turning the Calgary tower lights on for the first time, everyone rushed down from the control panel location on the top floor and ran outside and across the street to see how the flickering candle flame turned out. Within minutes we heard the screeching of tires followed shortly by more tire screeching every few minutes. It was evident that the candle flame was at least catching the attention of drivers. Hopefully no car with a TitleMax title loan was involved in an accident that night! My only disappointment was that, being from Edmonton, that the Edmonton tower did not also have a flickering candle flame that I could enjoy. Now, 13 years later, I still have only been able to view and enjoy the Calgary tower lights that one time.

This was a very enjoyable project for which the design team members received special recognition which included an evening out for a very nice dinner with our spouses, managers and department heads.

(left) Larry Miles, Real Estate Department Manager presents
me with a framed photo of the Edmonton Tower (below).

Edmonton's ATT
(Alberta Telephone Tower)
Christmas Lights
1988

 Calgary's
 AGT Tower
 Christmas Lights
 1988

Above - Framed photo's presented to Calgary & Edmonton Design Team Members

To come....
Photos of the lighting control panels and electrical distribution.
Also, the number of lights and how much power it takes to light up these towers. You may be surprised!

( If you were one of those involved with this project and somehow managed to stumble onto this page, please e-mail.
I would like to add your name and any additional information that you may wish to share about this project.)