Niftylift Gives MK a ‘Lift’ this Christmas
Niftylift’s Christmas tree gives Milton Keynes residents some much needed Christmas Cheer...
Thursday 9 December 2021
If you live in or around Milton Keynes, you may have noticed the Niftylift Christmas tree, which has been on display outside our Shenley Wood world headquarters since the beginning of December. For those that haven't, here's a short video to show you what we're talking about...
The Niftylift Christmas tree, which made its debut in 2016 (and has been displayed every year since), was conceived to give our local community something to enjoy in a uniquely ‘Niftylift’ way. Since its first appearance, the display has gotten better each year and this year’s tree is no exception!
Standing at 30m high, our Nifty Christmas Tree is one of the tallest structures in Milton Keynes and with Shenley Wood being one of its highest natural locations, can be seen from sites all around the city.
How’s the Nifty Christmas tree made?
The ‘tree’ is made using three Niftylift HeightRider 28 (HR28) Hybrid work platforms. Each HR28 is wrapped with 3,200 LEDs, a cable run of 400 metres, and takes our team about 8 hours to wrap, per machine.
That’s a total of 1.2 km of lights with 9,600 LEDs on the tree alone!
A Very Special Christmas Star
For many families, the star that sits atop the tree is the most important decoration and this year we've taken our star to the next level with a full-spectrum RGB colour changing spectacular!
Using a state-of-the-art computer-controlled system, our new star can display any colour or combination of colours you can imagine, and if that wasn’t enough the star can display them in dynamic constantly changing patterns too!
The Nifty star is a custom-made structure, designed in-house by our engineers and is the UK’s first full-colour 3D star with 14 points. Each individual LED on the star is mapped in 3D space and can be controlled independently and this is how it can produce its different patterns and in virtually any colour in the visible spectrum.
The star took a special installation team 8 hours to wrap and is covered with 7500 LEDs, a cable run of 750 metres, which really helps it to stand out against the Milton Keynes skyline at night!
Some Interesting Tree Stats
Here are some facts/stats on our Nifty Christmas tree and star that might be of interest:
- 30m - total height (tree and star)
- 17,100 - LED count (tree and star)
- 1,950m (~ 2 km) - LED cable run (tree and star)
- laid end-to-end horizontally, would reach from Niftylift's HQ (Shenley Wood) to the middle of Furzton Lake
- laid end-to-end vertically, would be taller than; 6 x London Shards, or 6 x Eiffel Towers, or 2 x Burj Khalifas (the world’s tallest building)!
- 72 person-hours – total time to wrap tree and star
- Only 5.5 amps – total power usage at full brightness
Merry Christmas from Niftylift
As we approach the end of another 'unusual' year we're looking towards 2022 with optimism and excitement. With our range of environmentally conscious hybrid and all-electric machines selling well both domestically and abroad, we have good reason to be optimistic!
Roger Bowden, Niftylift's founder and Chairman commented:
“Niftylift has been in Milton Keynes for more than 35 years and during that time we’ve grown to become a successful and sustainable British manufacturing company, investing in our technology and our infrastructure, and offering many new employment opportunities in the area.
"We want to continue to play an active role within this wonderful community and I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year from all of us at Niftylift.”