A Huddersfield company formed just three years ago has brought Christmas magic to shopping malls and garden centres across the UK.
The Wonderworks, based at Lindley, has completed 11 Christmas projects to design, manufacture and install grottos and Christmas animations for locations as far afield as Aberdeen and Dorset.
Several projects in Scotland included a 12ft x 12ft display at Edinburgh Airport which includes a throne for Santa to sit on.
The company has also lit up five shopping centres with a variety of festive animations. Displays have featured talking reindeers, a huge ice castle and a nutcracker-themed interactive music boxes featuring moving and talking characters, including an animatronic mouse king.
In southern England Wonderworks was appointed by Marlowes Shopping Centre in Hemel Hempstead to design and produce large stars and Christmas trees in recycled timber plus a spectacular blue neon snowman.
All were designed to allow children to add to the props with plastic bottles. A large reindeer completed the display with a hole for his nose through which customers could donate Christmas presents for a local charity.
For a shopping centre in Middlesex, The Wonderworks created a grotto and snow scene complete with reindeer, penguins, trees with lights, toy sacks, presents and an artificial snow floor. A large “naughty or nice” wheel was also created – allowing children to spin the arrow to see whether they will get presents or not.
Wonderworks founder Rob Curran said: “This has been our busiest year yet, including repeat customers as well as new ones. This has been driven by a huge demand for creative Christmas displays and grottos that offer new and more interactive experiences for customers.
“As we’re responsible for all the design work as well as the manufacturing and installation of each display we started working on most of these contracts in the spring to ensure they could all be delivered within very specific timeframes.
“Now that they’ve been completed we’re already planning for 2018 and new ideas not only for Christmas next year, but other seasonal events and a broad range of bespoke projects for our clients nationwide.”
Based at Heritage Mills, The Wonderworks was founded in 2014 by Rob, a former pupil at Salendine Nook High School who later attended Dewsbury Art College.
The firm specialises in creative design and displays working nationwide for customers in sectors including retail, hospitality, interior design and fit-out.
