The Standard helps choose Covent Garden Christmas Tree to celebrate new platform Insider

Deck yourself before you wreck yourself: the tree will be lit up with around 30,000 lights

JEFF MOORE

Luke Abrahams25 October 2018

The Evening Standard has helped choose this year’s Covent Garden Christmas tree.

We travelled to Woods Farm in Solihull in the West Midlands yesterday to select the 55ft tall tree. Once in the Covent Garden piazza, it will take 126 hours to decorate. The tree will be displayed until the first week of January.

Rachel Gould of Sculptivate, the creative studio which manages the installation, said: “Picking the tree is a really important job... It takes nine hours for a 70ft crane and a team of 100 to install it.”

About 25,000 to 30,000 lights, weighing three tonnes, will decorate the tree. The Standard will hang two baubles on it on November 7 to celebrate the upcoming launch of standard.co.uk’s new platform Insider, based in London and New York.

Never fir-get: The Standard's Luke Abrahams travelled to Solihull to choose the perfect tree

JEFF MOORE

It will be the Standard’s glamorous guide to the best of luxury lifestyle, centred on celebrities, young royals and society, with the world’s most magnetic people, places and products.

The Kingdom Choir, who sang at Harry and Meghan’s wedding earlier this year, will perform Stand By Me during the switch-on event on November 13.