Beno

Beno (formerly benobve), commonly known as BENO or simply Ben, is a lift filmer as well as unauthorized lift surfer from Medway, Gillingham United Kingdom.

He is the original founder of "lift tour" videos (usually labelled as "custom text^[1] | IT'S LIFT TOUR TIME!")^[2]. He is also the creator of Beno Building Creator which is an online building creator that creates building files to Skyscraper Simulator (a 3D building simulator).

History

Ben has been interested in lifts since he was three^[3]. On February 23, 2009, he started his YouTube channel "benobve"^[4] and started uploading lift videos after watching videos from mrmattandmrchay, Harrihealey02, Lee Thomas, and JackOtis (now closed). He also uploads trains, lifts, and bus videos, and the reason why he uploaded all of these videos is because he enjoyed doing it. He wanted to document lifts that there was absolutely nothing about on the internet, as well as seeing if the interests in lifts in the UK would grow from just a few people into lots of people. Most of all he wanted to film the least known lifts (as well as the ordinary ones which are fun to ride) and he enjoyed doing so.

In November 2015, Ben decided to drop the "bve" from his channel name, shortening it to just "Beno" (the "B" was also capitalized).

For the last couple of years, Beno has taken up lift surfing instead of formal lift photography.

Lift Surfing & Keys

In recent years, Beno has taken up "lift surfing", using his keys to ride on top of elevators in random buildings, entirely without authorization. The more secure the building is the more reason to go on top of lifts. As well as this, he also likes to use his collection of keys to put lifts into special service modes, use fire mode and access lifts that need a key to access. Beno does this in his "Detailed look at _________" videos, his "Lift adventure" and "Random lift adventure" videos.

Random Lift Tours

Sometime in 2012, Beno launched a new style of his lift tour named "Random Lift Tour". It is a lift tour mixed with random stuff that is usually not related to lifts. It is also often includes short comedic scenes, fake advertising, and even burping and farting noises.

In the United Kingdom

Tower Bridge
King's College Hospital
Manchester
Christmas Special in Luton and Dunstable (a.k.a. BENO Christmas Special) (2013)
University of Kent
Christmas Special in London (a.k.a. BENO Christmas Special II) (2014)

Across Europe with Low Cost Airlines

Cycling and camping adventure in France, Belgium and Netherlands (2015)
Cologne, Germany (2016)
Frankfurt, Germany (2016)
Cheep Flight Adventure to scotland (2017)

Epic Lift Tour

This is the name that Beno gives to his ultra long and awesome lift tours. These lift tours often focus on other things (but not random things) such as buses, trains and other interesting things that relate to the place that Beno is visiting (in other words these videos are not made to be comedic like the Random Lift Tours are). So far 4 of these videos have been made:

Olympic Park
Olympic Legacy
Heathrow Airport
Gatwick Airport

Adventures with Low Cost Airlines

2016

1: Timisoara, Romania
2: Cologne, Germany (with DewhurstIsSoAmazing)
3: Sofia, Bulgaria

2017

4: Hamburg, Germany
5: Giessen, Germany
6: Bremen, Germany
7: Berlin, Germany
8: Toulouse, France
9: Glasgow, Scotland
10: Edinburgh, Scotland
11: Lanzarote island, Spain
12: Barcelona, Spain
13: Costa Brava, Spain

Parodies in the channel

Stuffed Animal Characters

Beno uses a selection of stuffed toy animals, which represent owners of Generic lift companies that he has invented. The most popular of these is Evil Owl, who made his debut in the random lift tour series, and has been a fixture of Beno's channel since. Evil Owl is the owner of "The Evans Lift Alliance" (parody of the real generic company "Express Lift alliance"), and has a passion for replacing old lifts with his bad quality generics. The second most popular character is High-Rise Hamster, who owns the rival company "High Rise Lift Services".

Advent Calender (2015)

Beno decided to do a 25-episode advent calendar in 2015, later re-titled as the title start with "Eastfields" (parody of Westfields), in which he visits several Westfields shopping centres, as well as various other malls and town centres (Westfields is the main focus though). This series also includes riding on buses and trains, as well as cameos by Evil Owl and High-Rise Hamster.

"Improve" the lift safety story

Beno uses a story from the "Lift and Escalator Industry Association" (LEIA) in the United Kingdom called "Liam Loves Lifts!" to create his own version and make the parody of the story, which include a "lift surfing" scene in the story^[5]^[6]. This also claimed that the original story was not very interesting.

In November, 2016, LEIA sent copyright claims to pull the parody down from YouTube. Beno won the claim and the video was restored in December, 2016^[7], as he claimed that fulfill the fair use term of the copyright.

"Moo Cow Diarrhoea Tasting Club" magazine

This is the response to the Elevation magazine which was produced for the generic lift companies in the United Kingdom. This also claimed that the original magazine was not very interesting.

Trivia

Other than being an lift enthusiast, he is also a bus and railway enthusiasts. He also loves urban exploring, cycling, lamp posts, substations, grotty places and forts.
So far, his longest single lift tour video is "Frankfurt Random lift tour" with 32 minutes and 15 seconds duration.^[8]
His longest lift tour in total is his 2015 Advent Calendar, which sees him go to many different Westfield shopping centers in the the UK. The tours is over 2 hours long, but is split up into 25 episodes (as it is an advent Calendar).
He has been filming lifts with Top Level, PostTower, BefaceComputing, Hate Generics, DEWHURST IS SO AMAZING!, Aaron AB Hazza2002 ltbcvids since 2015.
He hates lifts that has been modernized or installed by generic lift companies^[9] or with modern Dewhurst fixtures^[10], claiming that they are very boring and crappy^[11].
His favorite lifts are:
- Express Lift
- Bennie
- Evans Lifts
- Aldous and Campbell
- Schindler lifts with M-Line fixtures (both touch-sensitive and push buttons)
- Schindler 5500 lifts
- SchindlerSmart MRL and SchindlerMobile (Direct Drive)
- Platt-Schindler (Schindler R-Series or 60s pop in logic buttons)
- Kone Ecodisc
- Otis 2000 (only fast/traction ones)
- Otis lifts built before 1990s
- Mitsubishi
- ThyssenKrupp TWIN
- Orona (only if it's running good)