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Beno

The current Beno Avatar.

Beno (also known as Beno Lifts,benobve), commonly known as BENO or simply Ben, is a elevator filmer as well as unauthorized elevator 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 elevators since he was three[3]. On February 23, 2009, he started his YouTube channel "benobve"[4] and started uploading elevator videos after watching videos from mrmattandmrchay, Harrihealey02, Lee Thomas, and JackOtis (now closed). He also uploads transportation videos such as trains and buses, 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 elevators (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).

In February 2018, Ben changed the channel name to "Beno Lifts". This was done as a temporary measure due to an issue with his Google account, and was reverted to "Beno" later.

For the last couple of years, Beno has taken up lift surfing instead of ordinary 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

No. Location Title Release date
1 London Tower Bridge April 16, 2012
2 London Kings College Hospital May 26, 2012
3 Manchester Manchester September 21, 2013
4 Luton and Dunstable Christmas in Luton and Dunstable
(BENO Christmas Special)
January 1, 2014
5 Kent University of Kent October 13, 2014
6 London Christmas in London
(BENO Christmas Special II)
January 1, 2015

Across Europe with Low Cost Airlines

No. Location Title Release date
1 France
Belgium
The Netherlands
Cycling and Camping Adventure in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands October 1, 2015
2 Cologne, Germany Cheap flight adventure to Cologne in Germany March 10, 2016
3 Frankfurt, Germany Cheap flight adventure to Frankfurt in Germany October 21, 2016

Epic Lift Tours

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:

No. Location Title Release date
1 Stratford Olympic Park September 8, 2012
2 Longford Heathrow Airport August 17, 2013
3 Stratford Olympic Legacy June 12, 2014
4 London Gatwick Airport January 13, 2015

Adventures with Low Cost Transportation

Low Cost Airlines

Year No. Location Currency Notes / Special
2015 1 Copenhagen, Denmark Danish krone Compilation of videos
2016 2 Belfast, Northern Ireland Pound sterling Lift tour
3 Timișoara, Romania Romanian new leu
4 Cologne, Germany Euro with DewhurstIsSoAmazing
5 Sofia, Bulgaria Bulgarian lev
2017 6 Hamburg, Germany Euro
7 Giessen, Germany Euro
8 Bremen, Germany Euro
9 Berlin, Germany Euro
10 Toulouse, France Euro
11 Glasgow, Scotland Pound sterling
12 Edinburgh, Scotland Pound sterling
13 Lanzarote island, Spain Euro
14 Barcelona, Spain Euro
15 Costa Brava, Spain Euro
16 Luxembourg, Luxembourg Euro
17 Dublin, Ireland Euro
18 Poznań, Poland Polish złoty
19 Basel, Switzerland Swiss franc
20 Benidorm, Spain Euro
2018 21 Rome, Italy Euro
22 Budapest, Hungary Hungarian forint
23 Nuremberg, Germany Euro
24 Malta Euro
25 Mallorca (Majorca) island, Spain Euro
26 Kaunas, Lithuania Euro
27 Geneva, Switzerland Swiss franc
28 Gdańsk, Poland Polish złoty
29 Warsaw, Poland Polish złoty
30 Bratislava, Slovakia Euro
31 Vienna, Austria Euro
32 Kraków, Poland Polish złoty
33 Kiev (Kyiv), Ukraine Ukrainian hryvnia
34 Rabat and Casablanca, Morocco Moroccan dirham
2019 35 Madrid, Spain Euro
36 Tel Aviv, Israel Israeli new shekel a.k.a. Cheap flight adventure gone wrong
37 Eilat, Israel Israeli new shekel
38 Naples, Italy Euro
39 Lviv, Ukraine Ukrainian hryvnia
40 Porto, Portugal Euro
41 Beijing, People's Republic of China Yuan (Renminbi) A part of the expensive flight adventure to Hong Kong.
42 Algarve, Portugal Euro
43 Nantes, France Euro
44 Rennes, France Euro
45 Pardubice, Czech Republic Czech koruna
46 Prague, Czech Republic Czech koruna
47 Tenerife, Spain Euro with BefaceComputing
48 Eindhoven, The Netherlands Euro
49 Oslo, Norway Norwegian krone with BefaceComputing
50 Athens, Greece Euro

Italic = upcoming cheap flight adventure

Low Cost Coaches

Year No. Location Currency Notes / Special
2017 1 Amsterdam, The Netherlands Euro

Low Cost Railway

Year No. Location Currency Notes / Special
2019 1 Shenzhen, People's Republic of China Yuan (Renminbi) A part of the expensive flight adventure to Hong Kong.

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[8]. This also claimed that the original magazine was not very interesting.

"JU Mode Adventure" Advent Calender (2017)

Beno decided to do a 25-episode advent calendar again in 2017, advertised as the "JU Mode Adventure"[9] (one of the mode when the users broke the lift safety circuit), in which he visits several cities in Germany and London in the United Kingdom, This is the first series with the lift surfing scenes.

Trivia

Gallery

Opening title cards

Closing title cards

Lift Tours maps


See also

External links

  1. It can be a location[1] or a conclusion about where the building he was filmed[2].
  2. His older lift tour video was titled as "Tour of the lifts at (location)"[3]
  3. Do you even lift? The up and down world of YouTube elevator obsessives
  4. 1000th VIDEO SPECIAL!!!
  5. An inportant story about lift safety
  6. Liam Loves Lifts
  7. Elevation magazine campaigning to remove my videos
  8. This has been taken over by Elevator World, Inc. in 2018. (archived)
  9. JU stands for "Justierfahrt" in German and means the lift lost its position and is refinding it. This mode can only found in the Thyssen and thyssenkrupp lifts. Refer to: "STUPID LIFT" - JU MODE SAFETY BREAK THYSSEN KRUPP LIFT - Trizocbs
  10. Frankfurt Random lift tour
  11. RANDOM LIFT TOUR - Christmas Special
  12. Wimbledon Shopping Center | IT'S LIFT TOUR TIME! (This video also marked as his first claimed the modern Dewhurst fixtures is not interesting)
  13. RANDOM LIFT TOUR - Manchester
  14. 14.0 14.1 Moo Cow Diarrhoea Tasting Club Magazine - December, 2017
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