One thing that was not mentioned is that there is nothing pre-loaded with this type of equipment. If you are looking for pre-loaded stuff then you might want to stick with Gemmi but the disadvantage in that is cost and limited flexability.
I would have to say is that unlikely that a DIY solution would be available for you this year probably due to the learning curve alone. While the equipment here is fairly easy to build and learn to use, it is currently not available for commercial use and what you want to do is considered commercial. You could possibly go with Renard which is also DIY and I don't think that they are all that concerned with using that equipment in commercial situatons, but IMHO, they are more difficult to build and debug. Another issue to think about is that if you don't use UL listed equipment and someone gets hurt by it, there may be some legal responsibility on your part, especially using it in a public place.
Either way, you would still need to learn how to sequence to get them to do anything and there are both free and pay programs to do this. Vixen 2.1 comes to mind here and the price is free. It is easy to use for what your plans are and the good thing is that you don't need any hardware to practice or even sequence with it. It has a preview pannel that will allow you to import a picture of the are you want to decorate and then draw in the lights that you intend to use. You can then sequence away. If and when you decide to do it for real, you can put in your controllers and assign the channels and you have a sequence ready to run.
