Episode 4

Things are really getting hectic now; the next three weeks are the very busiest time for us. 

You probably look upon the Christmas lights switch-on as the real start of the festive shopping season when you go along to admire the decorations and maybe see Santa, but we bet you’ve never given much thought to how the centre gets transformed over the space of just a few hours. 

We work at the dead of night once the centre’s shops have closed and everyone has gone home.  Usually at this time of night there are only security guards and cleaners working in the centre and it can be quite eerie and chilly and all the sound echoes around the empty spaces.  However, on the night our installation team is there it hums with life.  The whole team arrive in plenty of time and park in the goods inward area of the centre. Everyone gets togged up in their hi-vis safety gear whilst they wait for the large loading bay doors to be rolled back.  Once this has happened everything can be unloaded which is a very long job in itself. 

The decorations are transported to the site in large wagons, which are unloaded gradually, there’s an awful lot of stuff inside them and even quite a small centre will need two wagons to carry all its decorations. It’s surprising just how many decorations are needed to fill all the voids and they make up a very bulky load, as it’s so important that they arrive undamaged. The coffin boxes containing smaller arrangements of baubles, snowflakes or stars are unloaded first, followed by the big racks on which the larger garlands and swags are transported to prevent them getting squashed. 

Eventually everything is sitting safely inside the centre, ready to be carried to its allotted place.  Just time for a quick pep talk from the project manager and let the action begin!

Episode 3

Each of our installation teams is led by an experienced project manager who travels round the country with them, working to make sure all the schemes are correctly and safely installed and that the quality is perfect. Every one of our in-house designers goes to the installation of the schemes they’ve designed to help make sure that the finished scheme looks exactly the same as the visuals that the client approved. Our Design Director is responsible for overseeing all the teams and travels all over the country making sure everything is going to plan.


Of course we don’t all go out, it’s a very busy time here in the offices as we never know what might crop up and we have to be prepared to turn our hand to anything that might need doing. Sometimes problems with hotels or travel arrangements need sorting out, spare parts might be needed urgently on site and we have to organise with a supplier to deliver them, any bits and pieces that might have been forgotten need to be sent or taken to the centres and, of course, we are always here to answer any queries you may have and to process your orders. It’s a challenging time for everybody and we all have to pull together but we usually manage to keep smiling. We pride ourselves on the quality of service we offer and in particular, our Operations Director is at the hub of the action, available 24/7 at this time to make sure we match up to the high standards we have set ourselves.

Episode 2

We’re just about ready for installation now, everything’s been organised with as much attention to detail as a military operation. All the hired cars and vans we need to take our installers around the country have been arriving over this past week, all the tools and equipment are packed up, all the hotel rooms have been booked, all the ferry trips and flights are organised, everybody’s got their cases packed. The decorations are coming out of storage from our depots across Yorkshire ready to be loaded onto wagons to be taken around the country. They are stored hanging on racks or packed carefully into giant boxes (known as coffin boxes!), all padded in layer upon layer of bubble wrap to ensure they arrive in pristine condition with no baubles broken or garland squashed, we do always pack a few spares though, just in case. It’s all systems go!

Installation 2010 – Episode 1

Have you ever wondered how giant-scale decorations are fixed in place?
In town and city centre schemes it’s quite easy to see the brackets on the lampposts and the wires and cables on the displays running across the street but the fixings aren’t quite so obvious in shopping centres. Next time you visit your local centre have a look upwards and see if you can spot anything.
Our prefix teams are out now ahead of our installation teams to do final site surveys. They put in place all the hooks and fastenings that the lights and decorations will hang from and make sure that all the power leads will be long enough to reach the sockets and so on and so forth. This forward planning can make all the difference between installation running to plan or it being problematic. All these fixings aren’t easy to spot the rest of the year but if you take a look once your centre’s all decorated; it’s interesting to be able to see where they all are.

Christmas Installation Diary 2010 - Prologue

As you may know our sister company, LDJ Design and Display, based, like us, in Skipton, North Yorkshire, specialises in bespoke-designed displays of wonderful decoration schemes for shopping centres across the UK and Europe.  We are surrounded by Christmas all the time as production is a year-round job for our specialist teams and we’re busy on the final run now, it’s a hive of activity in our workshops getting the last of this year’s displays ready and finishing packing them safely for transporting.  We know that for most people Christmas is just a dot on the distant horizon but, in common with the retail sector, for us it’s just around

the corner.  Although the beginning of October marks the start of the busiest time of our year, organisation for the installation of the decorations begins in February each year. We have to make sure that everything is in the right place at the right time so that the whole process runs smoothly and that everything is ready for our clients’ switch-on dates during November. There’s a buzz of excitement around the building at the moment as this year’s installation schedule is on the verge of beginning so check back next Friday for Episode 1 of Installation 2010.