One month before the sports world moves into Omaha, Nebraska, the downtown skyline looks more like a construction zone than the site of two major sporting events. The combination of the Greatest Show on Dirt and the 2016 Olympic Swim Trials, however, takes quite a bit of preparation. And while much of the preparation involves training volunteers and organizing workers, construction equipment is needed for other jobs.
While Omaha has hosted the Men?s College World Series for more than 50 years, this is only the third time that the U.S. Olympic committee has selected Omaha as the site for the swim trials. And while Omaha may be fairly new to the swim trial scene, they are the first city that has ever hosted the event three consecutive times.
The first time that the swim trials were in Omaha, city organizers strived to separate the two events by at least a week. By the second time Omaha put a bid in, however, the city decided to capitalize on the fact that much of the American sporting world would be watching events broadcast from Nebraska?s largest city.
And this is why, one month out that the Omaha riverfront looks like a construction zone. It takes a lot of work to welcome and host fans from across the country. Several types of aerial lifts are needed to change the street banners to decorate the entire downtown area. Alternating between college world series and swim trial signs, the aerial scissor lift makes it way up and down the street as workers hoist the flags onto the light poles. Other types of aerial lifts are used to assemble the large performance lights that will be used on the concert stage.
Tonight We’re Going to Light Up the Sky!
The city of Omaha, although more known for its sumer sporting events, is also pretty good at decorating during the coldest winter weather as well. uses these lifts during the winter as well. The Friday after Thanksgiving is always the day that all of the prelit trees are turned on. For several days before hand, city workers and area contractors use electric boom lift and electric scissor lift equipment to string hundreds of thousands of lights throughout the entire down town parkway.
Could Construction Rental Equipment Help You Prepare for an Upcoming Event?
While many people think of different types of aerial lifts as being used on construction sites, they are also used for many other tasks. And although these pieces of equipment can be used for a variety of jobs, they always require special operator training. Before using any of the types of aerial lifts, for example, the operator has to complete enough training to earn an aerial lift certification card. This means, of course, that companies or cities that need temporary use of some of the largest construction lifting equipment must decide between renting the equipment themselves and training their own employees or contracting the biggest jobs out to companies that provide both the equipment and the certified operators.
Different tupes of aerial lifts operate differently form one another and are used for different kinds of jobs. Scissor lifts, for example, are often seen at indoor venues because they conveniently collapse into a short storage space. You might have seen this kind of lift when crews are doing high ceiling cleaning or changing the light bulbs that are located high in the ceiling of an indoor venue.
Electric boom lifts, on the other hand, can be used for projects where the equipment can not be placed directly below the work area. Large trees that need to be trimmed, for example, often require a boom lift. These machines can be parked several feet from the base of the tree. Finding a level location for the machine is the first step of the tree trimming process and this step is followed by an operator moving a basket with a boom arm close to the tree so that the worker can reach the branches that need to be trimmed or removed.
Various companies throughout the country offer lift rentals that can either by operated by the person renting the machine or by a rental company employee.
