Display Multiple Nodes at one time.

I have been looking for the past few days for a way to display multiple nodes (say 3 nodes) at one time in the "single frame" mode of the slideshow. (I wanted to display 3 event type teasers at a time a that fade in and out until all are displayed.)

I thought that I could change it by adding my code to the template file but it did not work. Can anyone point me in the correct direction or give me some pointers?

(PS I do not want to use the thumbnail hover, I just want a very small block with fading nodes).

function mytheme_views_slideshow_view_nodes($view, $nodes, $type, $teasers = false, $links = true) {
  $items = array();
  $group_nodes=0;
  foreach ($nodes as $n) {
	if ($group_nodes==0){
		$node = node_load($n->nid);
		$items[] = node_view($node, $teasers, false, $links);
		}
	else {
		$node .= node_load($n->nid);
		$items[] .= node_view($node, $teasers, false, $links);
		}
	$group_nodes++;
	if ($group_nodes>3){
		$group_nodes=0;
		}
  }
  return theme('views_slideshow_slideshow', $view, $nodes, $type, $items);
}