Fuzzwire is the new brand created through a merger of LDJ Design & Display and Centre Design, two of the market leaders in Christmas display.

The festive season delivered record trading days and strong sales performance for McArthurGlen, boosted by early shopper spend in November.

Events specialists Melbry Events have won two national accolades for the quality of their Christmas grottos in the retail arena.

The Rock, Bury is set to reveal a historical theme to its spectacular ‘Glitter Ball’ - its Christmas light switch-on event on Thursday 17 November.

X Factor 2010 winner Matt Cardle is headlining Meadowhall and Hallam FM’s outdoor Christmas Light Switch-On Charity Concert on Thursday 3 November.

This Christmas, shopping hotspots, Cheapside, Leadenhall Market, One New Change, Royal Exchange and department store House of Fraser are teaming up to host a festive shopping event.

After the sell-out success of last year’s inaugural event, Sheffield’s Meadowhall has once again teamed up with Hallam FM to host its second outdoor Christmas Light Switch-On Concert.

The Seasonal Group, the fast growing retail display, decorations and maintenance company, is expanding with new warehousing in Halifax.

Over 300 guests gathered at MK Illumination’s head office in Innsbruck, Austria, on Friday 2 September to celebrate the company’s 15 year anniversary.

Animation and visual presentation experts KD Decoratives and international lighting specialists Blachere Illumination have announced their exciting new partnership.

Christmas has always been a time of goodwill and for shopping centres it can be a  great time to support community and charity projects, spreading festive joy while giving shoppers another reason to visit.

When it comes to a Christmas makeover, outdoor malls and retail parks require specialist solutions. And help is at hand.

With more and more shopping centres turning to experiential activities to make an impact, Christmas is a great time to try out new and exciting ideas.

An estimated 12 million shoppers – a fifth of the entire UK population - hit UK malls last Saturday in what financial experts are calling the biggest shopping day in history.

The Frenchgate shopping centre in Doncaster and Highcross Leicester have both reported higher footfall levels than last year welcoming around 400,000 visitors each in one week alone.

Christmas festivities kicked off at The Brunswick shopping centre in London last Friday with a visit from chart-topping singer Lemar.  

Metrocentre, Gateshead has installed a giant festive reindeer – standing as tall as a house and weighing the equivalent of two fully grown elephants.

A host of celebrities including chart-topping Olly Murs and fellow X-factor contestant Jamie ‘Afro’ Archer will be unveiling the Christmas lights display at the Trafford Centre, Manchester, this week.    

Although Christmas trends evolve year on year, some things have to remain the same. Stars and bells will always embody the festive season, just as red and gold conjure images of glowing hearths and mulled wine. But one area that needs constant upgrading is technology, and last year’s shift into high definition and 3D inspired some true festive innovation.

As shopping centres fight to distinguish themselves from one another, Christmas activities have grown bigger and better. The traditional Santa’s grotto is being replaced with food markets, ice rinks, and in some cases even castles. But even the most spacious mall couldn’t house an expansive winter wonderland, so centres are switching to outdoor spaces for their festive offerings.

The recession has caused endless difficulties for the shopping centre industry, from rising vacancy rates to dwindling footfall. But if there is a glimmer of silver lining, it’s that centres are upping their game. The assumption that shoppers will continuously flood through the doors is fading fast, and managers need to stay more appealing than the competition. Christmas decorations are an ideal draw, so keeping up with current trends is vital.

A new poll of UK shopping centre executives conducted for Shopping Centre by market research consultancy Business Blueprints, gives some small indications of optimism.

The recession has caused endless difficulties for the shopping centre industry, from rising vacancy rates to dwindling footfall. But if there is a glimmer of silver lining, it’s that centres are upping their game. The assumption that shoppers will continuously flood through the doors is fading fast, and managers need to stay more appealing than the competition. Christmas decorations are an ideal draw, so keeping up with current trends is vital.
Christmas is without a doubt a scheme unto itself. It transforms the look and feel of a shopping centre, building on existing styles and working with the architecture to give an immediate impact. As Klaus Mark, CEO of lighting manufacturer MK Illumination, puts it: “You need that wow-effect as people come into the centre.”
To achieve this effect, managers need to find the right balance of lighting inside the centre. Too little and centres undersell themselves; too much and the impact is heavy and confusing. MK Illumination, with its head office in Austria and sales subsidiaries in 17 different countries, has had to adapt to the different cultures and traditions surrounding Christmas time.
But despite certain variations, the desired effect of shopping centre decorations is always to delight without being overly distracting. “Christmas lighting is so important to attract people to the centre. Everything needs to be considered to make the product more attractive, from the colours of the lights to whether they should flash or blink,” says Mark.
In order to increase footfall, the managing director of MK Illumination UK, Paul Dove is pushing for centres to use external lighting as well as internal. The UK is behind other European countries in terms of outdoor Christmas decoration, and while this might have something to do with British weather, Dove thinks UK centres are missing a trick. “Centres take it for granted that people are going to shop with them, but that isn’t the case anymore. People need more encouragement.”
As MK products are used in a range of countries with very different climates, the lighting is suitable to withstand harsh British winters. But UK centres are keen to stick with what they know, particularly when they don’t have much budget to play around with. Dove has high hopes this will start to change as an increasing number of schemes include public spaces. Sanderson Aracade in Morpeth is a partly outdoor scheme, allowing MK to design a 24-ft stag for its central courtyard. “A lot of centres are choosing to have outdoor spaces, which they will need to decorate come Christmas time,” says Dove.  
If centres are not entirely comfortable with taking Christmas decorations outdoors, the opposite is true for indoor schemes. Anita Stampfl, who works specifically with shopping centres across MK’s subsidiaries, notes that despite a recession and massive cuts in budget, managers are still putting money aside to kit centres out in the latest Christmas decorations and lighting. “The general consensus all across Europe is that Christmas is still very important, so shopping centres hold on to it even during times of recession,” she says.
Clinging to tradition through dark months of economic downturn is also reflected in the style of decoration. This year’s Christmasworld show, held in Frankfurt at the start of the month, demonstrated a trend towards a more traditional Christmas as opposed to the minimalistic and modern take of recent years.
With this in mind, MK has designed installations incorporating colours and shapes that are immediately associated with Christmas. The reindeer designed for Sanderson Arcade was a popular focal point of MK’s stand at Christmasworld, while traditional stars, bells and Christmas trees dominate the company’s catalogue.
Operations manager for MK UK, Russell Brown, believes the contemporary design of previous years became too detached from the spirit of Christmas. “Lighting went too far – it didn’t replicate Christmas for shoppers,” he says. “We have gone for a more contemporary design but we’ve also retained tradition. People can immediately tell that our reindeer or trees are meant for Christmas, but we use aluminium frameworks, crystal and baubles to inject a modern element.”
This explains MK Illumination’s theme for 2010: ‘Tradition in Modern Times’. In keeping with this trend, MK has chosen warm white light to use throughout its designs for the coming year. “It’s the colour for 2010,” says Dove. “When LED was first introduced, there was a transitional period where blue and then white light was the colour to have. Now the fashion is heading towards a more traditional warm light.”
Because MK not only installs but also manufactures its products, everything from colour to design can be adapted to suit current trends. The original reindeer design, which used white light at the Morpeth scheme, is now made up of 5,000 warm white LEDs.
The warmer glow effect also went down well for MK’s Irish subsidiary after the busy shopping street, Opera Lane in Cork City, opted for the new colour last Christmas. Jon Riordan, managing director of MK Ireland, explains: “There’s a preference for a warm, glowing feeling in shopping centres. Flashing white lights are fine externally, but inside the lights should be comfortable and slows people down while they look around the shops.
“Ireland has had such a rough run, what with the banks, the economy and the housing crisis. Now, people here just want to slow down a bit.”
Across Ireland and the UK, recession hit hard. But according to Stampfl, this has only made people hanker after the warmth and comfort of a traditional Christmas that bit more. “When times are tougher, you always go back to what you know. That’s not just with illumination, but with everything.”

vibrant colours
According to Caroline Gamester, managing director of leading decorations company LDJ Design and Display, the recession has prompted a noticeable shift in attitude. “The same thing happened with the Depression of the 1930s and 40s. People just want to feel fabulous,” she says.
Having worked in the fashion industry as a designer for Donna Karan, Gamester has a keen eye for colour and style. Using shop fronts and catwalks as inspiration, LDJ’s design team is working on a more colourful and vibrant approach going into 2010.
“Things that make people happy have become very important: bright colours, fun shapes. It’s almost a child’s eye view of Christmas,” explains design director Phil Mercer. “Rich materials and metallics, like gold and copper, are other key features.”
The concept of a ‘traditional Christmas’, however, is not a simple one. As Gamester points out: “What is traditional these days? Blue is now becoming a tradition, whereas five years ago you wouldn’t have seen it.” So when designing schemes, LDJ stays away from fixed ideas of what Christmas should or shouldn’t be. Instead, the team uses design concepts from several sources – including films, music and New York fashion trends – as a basis for new ideas.
“It’s more of a barometer. We were predicting trends for 2010 as we were installing 2009 schemes, so the most important thing is flexibility. We have to give centres what they want. Some centres, for example, are very child friendly, so they wouldn’t want the most sophisticated scheme going,” notes Gamester.
“We designed and installed decoration at Victoria Square in Leeds, which is a beautiful building with top end brands like Louis Vuitton. In that case, the architecture became very important. You always have to work with the scheme.”
And the style trends themselves can be flexible. “There’s a strong trend for art deco, which can be taken in many different directions. You can dress it up and make it extravagant, or leave it simple with just the shapes to suggest the style.”
Flexibility is not only important in adapting to the style of a shopping centre, but also to its budget. Managers don’t have a vast amount to put into Christmas schemes, particularly at the moment. But rather than being selective, LDJ has clients ranging from St David’s, Cardiff and The Mall at Cribbs Causeway right through to The Beacon Centre in North Shields.
Gamester sees it as something of a challenge. “It’s about coming up with innovative ways of working around smaller budgets. That’s where being a good designer comes into play. In fashion terms, designing high end tops when you have the best fabrics and patterns to work with is far easier than designing good value men’s shirts for Marks & Spencer.”
Clearly staying flexible to your clients’ needs has to go hand in hand with quality product and innovative design. For every supplier and installer of commercial decorations, health & safety is a top priority. “As well as making sure that each product is safely fixed, it costs our client a lot of money and effort if we have to come back in and repair things once they’ve been put up,” says Gamester.
“Over Christmas, we do 150 schemes in five weeks, so we need to get everything right first time. Basically, if it’s up there, it needs to stay up there.”

one step ahead
The design of each scheme is equally as important. Christmas is a great opportunity for shopping centres to attract people from further afield by installing creative displays that aren’t replicated in dozens of centres. As Andrew Lee, LDJ’s deputy manager, puts it: “Everyone is getting more advanced, kids especially. So we’ve always got to be thinking: what is the next big thing?”
Heavy investment in graduate training has helped the company stay ahead of the game. LDJ sponsors a course at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, working with the college on a number of projects to help students design and research the next generation of commercial Christmas experiences.
In turn, a fresh approach and different perspective helps the LDJ team stay innovative. Mercer enjoys hearing the students’ ideas, even if the logistics sometimes need tweaking. “It’s great to see something through fresh eyes.” he says.
“We have to give advice on how to make schemes commercially viable, because the students have never worked according to the strict criteria of shopping centre schemes. But their lack of inhibition also lets them be more creative, so we get see really some interesting ideas.”
First Christmas by Rosenau – a major manufacturer and supplier of decorations to shopping centres across Europe – is continuing the trend towards a vibrant and fun Christmas 2010. Summing it up as a ‘sparkling Christmas of light and movement’, business development manager Sharon Peterson says: “It’s a trend which is being carried through from the last two years and expanded upon, particularly in terms of increased use of sparkling and glitter effects, as well as waterfalls and sweeping curtain movements.”
But like MK Illumination, Peterson stresses the importance of tradition and familiarity. “First Christmas will not be found designing decorations in different fashionable colours, as perhaps our competitors will. Rather we believe that Christmas must be recognisable as Christmas and not look like an experiment of modern art. The use of traditional Christmas icons, such as trees and garlands are still very much in trend, albeit interpreted in modern designs,” she says.
It’s the innovation of the displays and their suitability to the centre that First Christmas prizes above anything else. Peterson agrees that decorations should underline special features, such as the architectural supports at Westfield London which were transformed into sparkling Christmas branches.
Similarly, First Christmas had to tailor decoration for the Brunswick Centre in West London – an outdoor scheme with no atriums or interior architecture from which lights or ornaments could be hung.

tailor-made
“The Brunswick is a small, but elegant outdoor shopping centre in London, representing quite a challenge as to where and how Christmas decorations can be installed. Up until 2008, the Centre had featured very little decoration other than coloured lighting under the outdoor seating,” Peterson says.
Using the brief given by centre manager David Plumb, First Christmas utilised every available feature – from trees and banners to awnings on the shop fronts – and adapted made-to-measure fixtures to transform the centre.
“Whatever the decoration, it must be the talk of the town, drawing customers to the centre for a special Christmas shopping experience at the time of year when they are most ready to spend,” Peterson adds.
“Putting all these elements together means that, where possible, decorations should be designed tailor-made for a centre. Indeed it might be cheaper to offer and install the latest warehouse leftovers, but will these really attract the customers?”
It’s the potential to transform a centre into a real attraction that inspires Adrian Ford, project director of Springfield Decorations and Display. Springfield designed and installed Cheshire Oaks’ 27.5-metre Christmas tree – famously the biggest in the world. And it’s this unique selling point that Ford is after: something that makes one centre stand out from the rest.
“Using Christmas decorations as part of a marketing strategy is not something most shopping centres do. Cheshire Oaks pushed the boundaries beyond what people consider decorations to be, and what they can be used for. The tree at Cheshire Oaks pulls in huge crowds even two years on,” Ford observes.
Rather than organising a Christmas lights switch-on and leaving it at that, centres should be creating a continual draw. Springfield designs decorations for the frontage and atrium of each John Lewis department store, and according to Ford, the effect is immediate: “The day we put the Christmas decorations up, sales increase.”
So Christmas displays are essentially marketing tools, as long as they are cleverly thought out and pack a punch. Ford suggests that a centre’s own colours can be used as a basis for the Christmas scheme, as a kind of branding exercise. And focal pieces should be used wherever possible.
“A tree is usually the centre piece in shopping centres, and it should be put in the middle of the centre to encourage people to walk through. If there isn’t room for a Christmas tree, then centres should have flowing decorations that carry all the way through the centre. You don’t want the experience to stop half way through.”
Keeping things fresh is also crucial. As shoppers walk into a new area of a centre, they should be greeted by a new spectacle. Specific themes and colours stay the same, but new design ideas will keep up the necessary impact.
“It’s almost a psychological approach to Christmas,” says Ford. “As people round the corner, they’ll see new ideas and that ‘wow-factor’ will continue throughout the entire centre. Footfall will inevitably increase if a centre looks and feels better than any other shopping mall.”
This sense of individuality and uniqueness was the basis of Springfield’s own rule never to repeat the same decorations in neighbouring centres. When designing schemes, however, Ford doesn’t follow a general guide but tailors everything to the style of the building. The Exchange Arcade in Nottingham suits traditional decorations, with green Christmas trees and garlands: “Contemporary would have felt completely wrong.”
At the other end of the scale, airports are modern buildings and Christmas displays need to fit in with these surroundings. “The decorations need to enhance the building. People need to walk in and notice it. You don’t want people asking, ‘Is that a Christmas decoration or part of the building?’”

Although Christmas trends evolve year on year, some things have to remain the same. Stars and bells will always embody the festive season, just as red and gold conjure images of glowing hearths and mulled wine. But one area that needs constant upgrading is technology, and last year’s shift into high definition and 3D inspired some true festive innovation.
Melanie Hurley, director of Melbry Events, has been a live events organiser for the past 16 years. Her work ranges across several types of Christmas activity, from grottos to skating rinks, putting her in prime position to keep watch over changes in the industry.
“Back when I started Christmas grotto management, the big shopping centres would expect to see 8,000 to 10,000 kids aged between two and ten. Now, you’d be lucky to see three to seven-year-olds. Things have completely changed – there’s been a huge reduction in children seeing Santa.”
And the reason behind all this, according to Hurley, is technology.  For children growing up with Nintendo Wii, iPods and the internet, simple pleasures like visiting Santa have to some extent become outdated and dull. “Kids expect far more, so you’ve got to be clever,” she adds.
Far from giving up on the tradition of Santa and his grotto, Hurley has spent the last few years thinking up ways to tie shopping centre festivities in with technological innovation. In 2006, Melbry Events pioneered an online booking system allowing parents to pre-buy tickets to Santa’s grotto at an allotted time.
“I went into big shopping centres and saw queues more than two hours long. Why would centres spend so much on a grotto, just for people to queue when they could be in the shops?”
If such a huge portion of their budget – typically the biggest spend of the year – goes on Christmas, Hurley reasoned that centres need to make the most of it by keeping things fresh
   and up-to-date. This formed the basis of Hurley’s next big project in 2008, incorporating one of the fastest growing phenomena in recent months: 3D. Starting with a basic application featuring an animation called The Wishfairy, Melbry Events launched its 3D shows in Westfield London, Liverpool One and Meadowhall, Sheffield.
“I wanted to bring the technology to shopping centres rather than just big cinemas,” begins Hurley. “The first step for us was The Wishfairy. Children went in to see Santa with 3D glasses on, and made a wish to the animated 3D fairy.”
An interactive 3D adaptation of ‘The Night Before Christmas’ followed at Meadowhall. “The children had to reach out and try to catch sugar plums and snowflakes all in 3D. I watched their reaction and thought, ‘I’ve really got something here.’ I knew I had to take it further and do something really fantastic with it.”
With the wheels set in motion, Hurley used the technology to deliver a 3D underwater show at the centre:mk last summer. And her latest idea – the3D story, ‘Rocket the Reindeer’ – launched in Christmas 2009. The interactive tale, which has attracted interest from major and independent TV studios, features Rocket the Reindeer searching for his missing antler alongside The Naughty Snowman and The Wishfairy in starring roles. Children participate in the search, with familiar exclamations of ‘Oh no she didn’t!’ and ‘He’s behind you!’
“It was very important for us to keep up tradition,” Hurley observes. “We wanted to create something that has longevity – something that wasn’t just a one-off but had a hook.” After eight months in development with writers and 3D renderers, two versions of Rocket the Reindeer were launched. One keeps to the format of The Wishfairy, with a narrator leading the children through a 3D story. The second version is a simple plug-and-play.
“Centres with an empty unit can create a cinema just by putting up a screen and playing the film,” says Hurley, emphasizing the commercial aspect of the event. And as the number of voids remains high, managers are constantly looking for a quick and easy set up to substitute money lost from rental income.  
“Centres can charge for the film to make it a commercial event. But they also get six to eight weeks’ rate relief if they put the cinema into a vacant unit.”

making an impact
Westfield London, Meadowhall and Liverpool One successfully hosted 3D shows over Christmas 2009, with reports of footfall figures more than doubling and online tickets selling out weeks in advance.
Meadowhall, the first centre to introduce Melbry’s 3D show, used Rocket as the focal point in its Santa’s Wonderland. For £3, children could walk through Santa’s workshop, where animated elves were busy finishing toys for Christmas, and through to the 15-minute feature show starring Rocket and The Naughty Snowman. The children’s journey then continues through the elves’ workshop, to find Santa in his grotto.
The number of visitors shot up by 64 per cent on last year, which impressed Meadowhall’s head of marketing, Richard Pinfold. “The customers were all delighted with the experience, as were the retailers with the increase of footfall through their doors. The enchantment and happiness on the children’s faces was very rewarding.”
Pinfold adds that the extra effort and cost was worth it, considering the potential value of grottos at Christmas time. The technology and quality involved in the show itself means that parents and older children can have a genuinely fun afternoon – perhaps not always the case with traditional Santa’s grottos.
“For many families, a trip to see Santa really marks the start of the festive season,” says Pinfold. “This year, we have worked very hard to provide a true Christmas experience that can be enjoyed by the entire family.
“The visitor figures certainly speak for themselves and are proof to us that all of the hard work has been worth it – the faces of the children when they come out of the Wonderland are truly magical.”
Soaring visitor numbers are a dream come true for an industry still recovering from economic crisis. But there is still a question of cost. Meadowhall, Westfield and Liverpool One can afford magical wonderlands with castle-like grottos, inside which children can enjoy the 3D show as part of this wider experience.
For smaller centres, however, the capital to host such an event simply doesn’t exist. In recognition of this, Hurley has provided a range of options to help small centres take advantage of the 3D craze. “Not everyone has Meadowhall or Westfield budgets, which is why we offer a whole library of films and 3D photography that centres can quickly put up in a unit. People walk in with 3D glasses and it’s a whole new experience for them.”

stay focussed
Experience is the buzzword of today’s retail and leisure industry. As shoppers become less frivolous with their money, they in turn become far more discerning. As Hurley puts it, simply plonking a Santa Claus inside a Christmas grotto doesn’t cut it anymore. “Footfall won’t increase – it will hit saturation point and stop. Centres need to reach a wider audience. You don’t even need a lot going on inside the grotto, as long as the experience you’ve provided is great.”
In other words, as long as everything is carefully planned and money is focussed on the right things, there’s no need to go over budget on Christmas activities. For Hurley, the focus is always on technology, where investment can go towards developing and evolving new experiences. By integrating the 3D shows with Melbry’s own online ticketing system, centres can benefit from detailed and accurate data collection.
“We are in a fortunate position because we do not licence our software, we own it. So we’re able to code in any data that marketing managers want to access via our online ticketing system during the event,” adds Hurley.
The 3D experience is certainly one to hold on to, especially while it remains a novelty. Hurley struck gold by spotting the beginnings of a new craze in amongst countless new innovations in technology and design. None of this was easy, or cheap. Hurley had to learn the ins and outs of 3D rendering – “The dimensions, measurements, projections, positioning of the screens and the audience” – and acquiring the technology cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.
“It was a risk,” she admits. “I had no investors; no back up. I even borrowed money on my mortgage. But I followed my senses on this one. It has everything: family appeal; experience; and it’s in everyone’s reach because the tickets are so affordable.”
 So what’s next? Hurley immediately replies: “4D. Rocket the Reindeer will become a sensory experience, with snow coming out at the children as they go on a sleigh ride.” And next Christmas will see the launch of joint projects, as Melbry Events work alongside market leader LDJ.
“They think along the same lines as I do,” says Hurley of LDJ. “Their focus is on innovation and new ideas. They create top quality products, but make sure that everything they produce is reachable.”
So it’s fair to expect some exciting new developments as the traditions of Christmas time are introduced to the fast-paced world of technological innovation.

As shopping centres fight to distinguish themselves from one another, Christmas activities have grown bigger and better. The traditional Santa’s grotto is being replaced with food markets, ice rinks, and in some cases even castles. But even the most spacious mall couldn’t house an expansive winter wonderland, so centres are switching to outdoor spaces for their festive offerings.
One such centre is the eminent Liverpool One, which no longer has a plain old grotto but Santa’s Ice Palace. “That says it all really,” says marketing director Lisa Tolley, who started on 2009’s Christmas scheme in the middle of last year. “The tendering process began in the summer, and LDJ came up with the idea of a magical ice palace which incorporated Liverpool’s Go Penguins event.”
Go Penguins, commissioned by Liverpool City Council as part of the Year of the Environment, comprised 150 individually designed penguin models scattered across the city. The scheme was designed to raise awareness of global warming, so naturally Tolley wanted Liverpool One to get involved. The Ice Palace was an ideal platform: nine handcrafted penguins found their way inside.
“It worked really well,” comments Tolley. “We wanted to give people something to look at while they were queuing to go inside, so we had penguins looking out through the glass windows. There was also a mail box where children could drop off their letter to Santa, and a conveyer belt to take the mail to the North Pole.”
Inside the grotto itself, a costumed Father Christmas sat on a throne surrounding by hanging icicles, (and a carefully positioned partition allowed the centre to get away with two Santas). Having taken so long to plan and a week to construct, Tolley wanted to make the most of the Ice Palace’s opening day.
“We had the option of hiding it and then doing a big reveal, but we thought why not use sound instead? Rather covering it up during construction, we used speakers to make it sound like elves were working on the palace, getting it ready for Christmas. It got children excited in the build up, and we kept a local feel by having the elves address people walking past. So they’d say things like, ‘Johnny’s been a very good boy this year!’”
Each aspect of the grotto was carefully planned and carried out, from setting up an indoor queuing area to keep children out of the cold, to top quality costumes provided by the grotto management team at Melbry Events. “The costumes were amazing; it was fantastic to know it was all in good hands,” adds Tolley. And most importantly, the children loved it. The number of visitors to Santa’s Ice Palace shot up 75 per cent compared to 2008, with locals and people coming from further afield to enjoy the experience.
“The palace created a certain ambience around the entire centre,” Tolley observes. “It sat at the end of our main street – Paradise Street – and twinkled in the evening, with traditional Christmas songs being played from the speakers.”
But it didn’t stop there. Aside from Santa’s Ice Palace, a 60-metre big wheel was set up in Liverpool One’s five-acre Chavasse Park. The park itself sits on a car park 20 metres above ground, offering unparalleled views of the city from a height of 80 metres.  
Add to this a traditional Christmas market, 3D mini-show, choir singers and other festive entertainment, and it’s hardly surprising that like-for-like Christmas footfall was up almost 30 per cent on 2008. “We’ve got a brand to uphold at Liverpool One, and every Christmas event was designed to enhance the consumer experience,” Tolley explains. “As they walked into the Ice Palace, the children’s faces lit up – it was fantastic to watch. There was something for everyone and it was just great fun.”
Meanwhile down in the South West, The Mall at Cribbs Causeway was upholding its own reputation as a premiere shopping destination. On 12 November, the centre opened a Winter Wonderland to provide a range of activities for visitors.
As with Liverpool One’s big wheel – the first ever wheel to operate in the city – the marketing team at Cribbs used a unique selling point to attract visitors. Maria Crayton, head of marketing for The Mall at Cribbs Causeway, says: “The Wonderland opened with a traditional Christmas market, Santa’s magical castle and a 1,000-sq m ice rink – the largest outdoor rink in the south west and the only one in Bristol.”  
Just as shopping centre commercialisation and marketing are becoming more about the ‘experience,’ centres are investing time and funds into unique, high quality Christmas events. Never-before-seen views of a major city, or the region’s largest outdoor ice rink, provide an experience that decade-old grottos and straggly bits of tinsel couldn’t hope to match.
“To celebrate Christmas 2009, we devised a number of marketing initiatives helping to increase footfall at the centre for the key festive trading period,” explains Crayton, and the success of The Mall’s initiatives were obvious. Despite running for the last six years, the Winter Wonderland continues to draw in huge numbers of families from across the region.    
“November and December saw increased footfall to the centre, and healthy revenue in ticket sales from both ice skating and Santa’s castle,” adds Crayton. “Castle ticket sales were up by nine per cent year-on–year; and sales of ice skating tickets up by seven per cent with more than 50,000 skaters taking to the ice.”
The quality of Cribbs Causeway’s multiple offerings has attracted many new visitors over the years, as well as ensuring each visitor returns next Christmas with family and friends. But new initiatives are constantly in the making, keeping things fresh. In 2009, the marketing team launched a new initiative called ‘Skate and Donate,’ which reached out to vulnerable people and firmly secured The Mall’s place within the community.
“The Mall donated certain skating sessions to charities, allowing skaters to offer the cost of their tickets to charity,” Crayton explains. Benefactors included Cancer Research UK and ‘Precious Drops’: a North Bristol Healthcare Trust campaign to launch a milk bank in Bristol for premature babies.
Both Cribbs and Liverpool One held spectacular events to switch on their lights and start the Christmas countdown. At the Mall, Father Christmas rode up through heaving crowds in a traditional sleigh pulled by reindeer. Children were allowed to pet the animals while Santa opened up his castle for the coming weeks.
Meanwhile in Liverpool, traditional festive characters walked down a red carpet flanked by paparazzi. Candy canes on stilts, presents and Christmas puddings took their turn down the carpet and into the Ice Palace, with the star of the night – Santa himself – appearing at the end.
The switch-on is a major event in most centres, often drawing in hundreds or even thousands of people. But for Liverpool One and Cribbs Causeway, it was the quality, the meticulous planning, and the unique sense of experience that held the attention of so many, long after opening night.