The Dallas Christmas Festival is one of the largest Christmas pageants in the US, and is one of the top-rated Christmas-related events in the state of Texas. It takes place in the Worship Center of Prestonwood Baptist Church, in Plano, Texas. DCF is one of the two largest outreach efforts of Prestonwood, with the other being PowerPoint Ministries. The executive director and producer is Reverend Todd Bell.
Contents
It usually has 500 persons, 70 pieces of orchestra and 100 behind-the-scenes technical crew members. It is a three-act spectacle, that lasts for two-and-a-half hours (including a 15-minute intermission). Each year there are thirteen DCF performances, many of which sell out. There are about 70,000 guests who watch the festival’s Christmas production every year.
The three acts
Recent performances have featured
On a large scale
There is an 85-foot-wide (26 m) proscenium arch, and about 15,000 square feet (1,400 m2) of staging area. Although the location's capacity is normally 7,000 people, the expanded staging area for DCF is so large, it covers the first 1,000 seats. The theatrical lights paint the entire room, not just the stage. The auditorium was designed, from the beginning, to complement every aspect of the 1.2-million-dollar speaker system. It was designed so that the very last row has the same level and quality of sound as the rest of the room. Sight-lines are unobstructed from every single seat. The entire stage can be seen even from the farthest seat, which is less than one-and-a-half times the width of the stage from the front.