|6 min read
The Short Answer Is September
Book in September. You get first pick of install dates and 15% off. October still works and saves you 10%. By November we're usually turning people away.
That's the whole answer. If you want to know why, here's how a holiday lighting season actually runs in San Diego.
What the Booking Curve Really Looks Like
The phone stays quiet all summer. Around the second week of September it starts going, and it climbs every week through the end of the month. October is the heaviest month for quote requests by a wide margin, and it isn't close.
Install dates fill in a different order than most people expect. The dates everybody wants are the ten days before Thanksgiving and the weekend right after it. Those go first, usually to people who called in September and hadn't even settled on a design yet. They booked the date, then figured out the display.
By early November what's left is scattered weekdays in December. Some years there's nothing left at all. We're not saying that to rush you. It's just what happens when a company caps its calendar, and any company worth hiring caps its calendar.
Month by Month
Here's how the season runs on our end.
- August and early September: quiet. The best window to get a design consult on the books within a few days of calling.
- September: bookings open in earnest at 15% off. First pick of every install date on the calendar.
- October: heaviest quote volume of the year at 10% off. Prime Thanksgiving-week dates start disappearing by mid-month.
- November: install season. Most homes go up between the first week and the weekend after Thanksgiving. New bookings depend entirely on what's left.
- December: display season. We're running repairs and service calls, not new installs.
- January: takedown, inspection, and storage. Nothing for you to do.
What Booking Early Actually Locks In
Three things, and only one of them is the discount.
The date. This is the big one. Lit by Thanksgiving is the single most requested outcome of the season and there are only so many nights before Thanksgiving.
The price. Your quote is your quote. Rates can move between seasons. Yours doesn't move inside one.
The design. Custom fabrication takes real time. Booking in September means we're cutting your strands in October with room to breathe, not the night before your install date.
Worth adding: none of the three requires you to have decided on a display. Plenty of people book the date first and finalize the design at the consult two weeks later. If you're waiting until you know exactly what you want before you call, you're waiting for the wrong thing.
The San Diego Season Is Shorter Than You Think
In a cold-weather market, installers start hanging lights in early October and nobody blinks, because the weather already looks like the holidays. Here it's 78 degrees and sunny. Almost nobody in San Diego wants their roofline lit in the first week of October.
So the entire install window compresses into about three weeks. Roughly November 5th through the weekend after Thanksgiving, everybody wants the same thing at the same time. That's the squeeze, and it's why a September booking is worth more here than it would be in Denver.
The back end is compressed too. Most people want the display down in the first two weeks of January, before the tree goes out and the house goes back to normal. We schedule takedowns the same way we schedule installs, and the same early-bookers get the same first pick.
None of this is a scarcity pitch. It's just a calendar with a fixed number of good days on it.
Why Any Good Installer Caps the Calendar
A crew can only do so many roofs in a week. That number is smaller than most people guess, because a real install isn't hanging a strand and leaving. It's measuring, cutting to fit, setting clips one at a time, running and hiding power, checking every socket, and programming a timer.
Rushing that is exactly how installs go wrong. Skipped clips that sag by week two. Cord stapled where it never should have been. A run measured a little short and stretched to cover the gap, so the spacing goes wide at the end of the roofline where everyone can see it. Every one of those problems traces back to a crew that was already late to the next house.
So we cap how many homes we take each season. If a company tells you in mid-November that they can fit you in any day you'd like, ask how many installs they're doing that week. The answer tells you something either way.
What Happens After You Book
Booking early doesn't mean your lights go up early. It means your spot is held. Here's the sequence.
First is the design consult. We walk your roofline with you, talk through color, count the trees worth lighting, and mark what gets lit and what doesn't. About 30 minutes. You get a written number before we leave.
Then fabrication. Every strand gets cut to your house, socket by socket, with bulb spacing set for your specific roofline. This is the part that makes a professional install look different from the curb, and it's the part that can't be rushed on install day.
Then your install date, which you pick. Tell us the night you want it lit, whether that's the day after Thanksgiving or the first Saturday in December, and we build the schedule backward from there. Timers get programmed so the display comes on by itself at dusk and shuts off on your schedule.
Then we're on call. If a strand fails or wind takes out a section, you text us and we come out. In-season repairs are part of the price, not a change order.
In January we pull all of it down, inspect every bulb, and put the display into off-season storage labeled to your address. Your garage stays empty and next year starts with a phone call instead of a project.
If You're Reading This in November
Call anyway. Cancellations happen and schedules shift, and we'll tell you straight whether there's anything left rather than taking a deposit and squeezing you in at 8pm on a Tuesday in mid-December. A rushed install in the dark is worse than no install, and it's your house either way.
Something else worth knowing: a smaller display booked late is often more realistic than a full one. A clean roofline goes up fast. Roofline plus six wrapped trees and a 60 inch wreath does not. If you call us in November, we'll tell you what actually fits in the time that's left instead of promising the whole thing and delivering two thirds of it.
If we genuinely can't get to you this season, book the design consult now for next year. You'll be at the front of the September list at 15% off, we'll already have your measurements, and your strands will be cut before the rush starts.
Call or text (858) 315-1247.