Appraisal of Town Centre Christmas Lighting
Written by Dan Haygarth
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Comments: 0
The benefits of providing a fantastic Christmas lighting scheme are well known. To create one requires a willingness to partner with us over many years in order to develop ideas, new areas and to schedule infrastructure improvements.
Outside of the major UK cities, providing a quality design led Christmas scheme is becoming increasingly difficult due to a severe lack of infrastructure, a shortened installation period and an apathy to improve the traditional model of choosing a Christmas Lighting supplier by using the dreaded "Invitation to To Tender" document.
1. Infrastructure
To be blunt, many of the civic schemes we become involved with have a severe lack of infrastructure which wastes a large proportion of the budget, uses unnecessary installation time and results in an poor display.
We have experienced this at the lowest and depressing level, motifs and lights being placed in inappropriate locations because this is where the electrical power outlets are. The most obvious example are sockets provided on street lamp posts resulting in positioning motifs directly underneath a high powered sodium lamp. Christmas trees squashed in-between a bus stop and a war memorial. Enough said.
Although High Streets are a minefield in relation to property ownership, town councils must display a willingness to improve their electrical and mechanical infrastructure. Think about the costs involved in two engineers with two supporting ground crew and two access machines installing temporary electrical extension cables which also need to be taken down year on year.
If faults develop, tracing where the problem lies is a time consuming business as often no one in the town is certain where the original electrical outlet is isolated or indeed if there is adequate safety protection for the final circuit.
2. Installation Period
Commercial traders will switch on Christmas lighting in early November but many councils are reluctant to install Christmas Lighting before Remembrance Sunday but will demand that Christmas Lighting is ready for a switch on ceremony in the 3rd week of November.
This short installation window is a problem for the lighting contractor. In order to survive financially any lighting contractor will be looking to service at least five Christmas lighting contracts. To service five contracts within the same installation window, the contractor has two choices: employ large amounts of self employed electricians and engineers or sub contract the works to a third party company.
3. Invitation to Tender Document
Many of the tender documents we receive are essentially a self destruct button to provide anything other than perfunctory Christmas Lighting which will probably receive a luke warm reaction from the public. In the age of social media, one negative posting can become a story picked up by the national press resulting in unwelcome publicity for your town.
The majority of documents will dictate the quantity and positioning of lighting and motifs onto untested catenary wires.The lighting will be powered from existing untested power supplies and time clocks in inconvenient locations or in some cases the contractor is responsible for the sourcing of power supplies from local buildings.
The requirement to issue a tender is understood however in most cases the design element of the lighting scheme is left to the discretion of the lighting company. The equivalent of asking a builder to submit architectural designs for your project.
This is the point where the tender is hijacked and heavily manipulated images become the main focal point of the tender document.
In our experience, the company which submits the most manipulated visualisations usually is awarded the contract.
As you are probably reading this because you are not satisfied with your existing Christmas Lighting arrangements I don't have to list the pitfalls which you are likely to encounter during the installation period.
For a company like Fantastic Illuminations, our service is bespoke. We do not simply sell lighting but work around your budget and location to provide you with a scheme to suit your requirements. To provide dynamic and evolving lighting schemes requires participation from both parties which is in direct conflict with the tendering process.
The Solution
Our background is working on large scale public events. We have watched this grow over the last thirty years from a cottage style business develop into a global industry.
Many of the skills and approach to working methods that have been learned during this extraordinary expansion can and should be adopted by Christmas lighting providers (councils)
The event industry only became efficient when local venues provided reliable and tested infrastructure to allow the visiting company to quickly set up and take down the technical equipment.
In our opinion we believe that the Christmas lighting process should be split into two distinct areas. The first being in deciding the complexity and technical and lighting design of your scheme, the second being employing a local installation company to provide you technical installation services only.
For a detailed explanation of out proposal please read on next article......
Director of Fantastic Illuminations
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