FREEPORT

At L.L. Bean’s flagship store, shoppers have been known to stop in their tracks during the holiday season.

Some adults drop packages, their mouths agape, and children run around and around, amazed. There, outside the Freeport store, is a 68-foot Norway spruce that appears to shimmy and dance. The musical holiday tree that came to life Friday is no static Norman Rockwell tannenbaum.

“Some have said this beats the tree at Rockefeller Plaza,” said Mac McKeever, L.L. Bean’s senior public relations representative. “It’s awe-inspiring. We do a good job of blowing folks away.”

Every half-hour, from now through Dec. 31, when the sun goes down, the Christmas tree mounted in Discovery Park turns into a visual masterpiece of light, image and sound.

Behind the awe this year is 21-year-old Sam Paine.

Inside a tent above the store’s 1912 cafe, Paine of Port Lighting Systems has been putting in late nights for the last two weeks. Turning a traditional tree into a modern Christmas miracle takes talent, time and digital knowhow.

“Last night, we started around 5 p.m. and didn’t quit till 1 a.m.,” said the lighting designer and project manager, who programs and tests each sequence to make sure the highly synchronized show dazzles for holiday shoppers and their tiny charges.

Since 2006, the Freeport sports retailer has featured a holiday tree outside its Maine department store. Three years ago, it hired the New Hampshire lighting company to take it up a few notches.

The technology behind the Vegas-styled show is “new and old,” Paine said.

A media server holding thousands of images, graphics and content — from swirls to snow to flags — are timed to flash with 10 holiday songs.

“It takes a lot of processing power to pull all of this together,” said Paine, who oversees what looks like a remote-control room with cables, cords and consoles and has a perfect view of the tree. “Everything you see here has its own computer, hard drive. We have to run multiple networks to have the gear communicate with each other.”

To create an illusion of a rocking tree with the pop and sparkle of a theme park requires attention and planning. Each song has between 64 and 331 visual cues that consist of hues and graphic mixups.

To make the nightly holiday light show appear seamless, Paine is stationed in Freeport in advance to run through the paces. He makes sure each transition is timed with the right musical beat. And songs such as “Wizards of Winter” by Trans-Siberian Orchestra, a three-minute song that’s the most complex, are polished.

“It takes a lot of work,” said Paine, who tests one song per night. “We’ve done full overnights where we work till the sun goes up. It has to be dark to see it. You can’t program during the day.”

Paine is part of a team effort that has 12 people from the lighting company and a local union to construct the display, which includes LED lights on accompanying trees and traditional lighting fixtures blinking in concert with 25,000 lights strung on the spruce. Underneath the tree is a digital network that receives Paine’s programed content, which is displayed by nodes.

He sees the tree as “an open palette.”

“We can make every light disappear or just light the tree and light it from the fixtures,” Paine said. “We can make the lights strobe, chase up and down,” seeming to dance and sway.

“ From my standpoint, you are better off watching it from far away,” he said.

After the lighting Friday, his gear went into a closet, and he will be able to monitor the show remotely by computer. Cameras focused on the tree help his team troubleshoot from afar.

How much does this amazing merriment cost the company?

“I wouldn’t say,” McKeever said. “ You can’t put a price tag on the amount of joy that tree generates over the course of the season. Customers and employees can’t help but smile. This jolts you into the holiday spirit.”

Why does the Freeport retailer, focused on selling sweaters and hunting boots, go through such lengths?

“We are trying to break away from the traditional shopping experience and create an interactive experience,” McKeever said. “By augmenting shopping with something memorable, it helps make us a destination.”

The L. L. Bean musical light show was lit for the first time last Friday in Discovery Park. It will run every half-hour, from 5 to 9 p.m. until the end of the year.

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