"When times get tight, you might forget about the fun of having an ice cream cone and strolling the mall and people watching. Free events and free entertainment are very attractive when times are tough. If you can't afford to take the family out to a movie, you might still go down and hear a band at the mall."
“The nation's biggest malls are pumping up their menu of events this year, adding music festivals, wine tastings, art fairs, high school fundraisers, and cooking seminars for kids, to name a few, as they try to work their way back into American's daily lives.”
Exert from "Malls stage events to make play for people's shopping dollars"
By Sandra M. Jones | Chicago Tribune Reporter
May 24, 2009
Thank you malls! After force feeding consumerism and just expecting us to buy, buy, buy, it seems they are remembering what it is to be a commercial center for a community.
Olden Day Markets were places of interest, excitement, entertainment, bustling, food, music and yes consumerism. People would be entertained, sell and buy wares, barter, eat, pick up the essentials and spend hard earned currency on the luxuries of the time. It was a place for relationships to flourish between buyer and seller. My GOSH it must have been quite the experience!
It’s refreshing to see a little of the life and spectacle brought back into our commercial centers. This gives brands the perfect opportunity to encapsulate their image and personality while giving people a reason to go out to visit the mall. The real rub will be when the markets level out. Will they go back to business as usual or continue to be creative in the ways they attract the masses?
I wonder what limits are placed on the community events that are held there.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the effect on public discourse of replacing the public market with a privately owned mall whose owners who can place strict limits on the types of social events that occur?