Between shows is what I call quiet time . I have a couple different sequences without music that I will play which run simple color washes, slow effects, snowflakes on the Megatree which are mostly color themed. I design them to be a 30 second sequence and just schedule them to loop until about 30 seconds before the start of the show.
I'm not sure how many others do this but I will actually turn my lights on in the morning and run one of the quiet sequences for a couple hours. It stays dark here fairly late so I tend to run the lights between 5:30am - 7:30am. This started as an accident as it is dark in the mornings when my kid was leaving the house so on a whim I turned them on so it was not as dark. Turns out the bus drivers enjoyed seeing them so I kept doing it.
I have a few effects on things, in a loop, 5 minute loop IIRC. It lights up the house outline globes all the time, candy canes (at xmas), and then once in each loop the arches, tree tubes, etc. go once. This gives it the impression that the lights have the potential to be interesting, though it currently isn't very. Might reassure people that they are in the right place. Trees, matrix, etc., are intentionally dark.
But the show keeps cutting into quiet time. Aside from pre-show, quiet time ends up being only a few minutes, so I don't put much effort in to the static sequence.
I run my show continuously but with a short 30-60 second intermission sequence every so often. This is scheduled in case someone wants to get a photo - and they do. Every year I have had visitors who have grabbed their phones to photograph the display during a regular song only for several elements to turn off (due to the point in the song).
This is a collection of 7 Christmas Season-themed "intermission" animated scenes plus a matrix countdown I made last year to use between shows. Nothing fancy. I attached some stills to give you an idea and a video here with a 15-second preview of...