British Turntable has helped Hoopers’ Harrogate store create their stunning “chic mid winter” Christmas display by supplying a number of ceiling-mounted turntables to the store. As previous customers of British Turntable, Hoopers was also able to re-use a Mini Carousel, bought in 2004, to complete the spectacle, which extended right from the shop-front windows through to in-store displays.

Hoopers is a stylish chain of department stores that aims to bring big city sophistication to the discerning customer in smaller provincial towns, where it has developed a reputation for style, quality, customer service and good value. As with any retail outlet, Christmas is an extremely important time of year for the stores in Harrogate, Torquay, Tunbridge Wells and Wilmslow, and the company has a policy of going that extra mile at Christmas to create the best environment possible for the discerning shopper.

Bob Ritchie, Visual Merchandise Manager at Harrogate explains: “At Christmas we’re set a budget that’s realistic enough to allow us to do something really special for our customers. The VM Manager in each store is then given free rein to interpret the year’s theme, so that each store looks different, reflecting their customers’ own style and individuality. As the theme for Christmas 2005 was ‘The Chic Mid Winter’ – a play on the popular carol, ‘In the Bleak Mid Winter’ – we decided at Harrogate to go for a cool, sophisticated, iridescent look all in white, using stars, crescent moons, angels and lots of lights and action to create the ‘wow’ factor.

“The turntables, of course, provided the action, and as we’d bought the carousel previously we didn’t have to dig very deep into our budget to achieve the movement we needed. I think it’s probably the best Christmas display we’ve ever done, and it certainly won us lots of praise from both customers and colleagues.”