Source: Cirque du Soleil
Will Cirque du Soleil help malls perform better?
In an extreme step for retailtainment, Cirque du Soleil, famed for its jaw-dropping acrobatic spectacles found in Las Vegas, plans to open “family entertainment centres” in malls.
In a statement, Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group said guests at the centers, called Creactive, can try circus and dance activities, bungee jumping, aerial parkour, wire and trampolines, mask designing and juggling. The indoor spaces will average 24,000 square feet.
“Our fans regularly express their wish to experience Cirque du Soleil from an insider’s perspective, to peek behind the curtain and imagine themselves stepping into our artists’ shoes,” said Marie-Josée Lamy, Cirque du Soleil Producer of CREACTIVE.
The program builds on the success of Club Med CREACTIVE by Cirque Du Soleil at Club Med locations in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic and Opio. The traveling performance group’s release stated that mall developers worldwide are looking to “offer entertainment experiences that turn malls into holistic destinations.”
The first center will be opened in a partnership with Montreal-based Ivanhoé Cambridge in a mall in the Greater Toronto area in September 2019. Discussions are underway with Ivanhoé Cambridge about other locations in Canada as well as with other partners for international markets.
Claude Sirois, president, retail at Ivanhoé Cambridge, said, “CREACTIVE is perfectly aligned with our vision for the future of retail: to join forces with the right partners to offer innovative experiences for the benefits of local families and communities.”
The initiative comes as mall traffic continues to suffer with the shift to online selling. Traditional department store anchors have lost their effectiveness as traffic drivers, and spaces are opening as stores and anchors depart malls.
Many malls have been clustering restaurants, adding upscale movie theaters or bringing in periodic fashion shows, concerts and other events to answer a desire for more “experiences” as part of the shopping visit. Cirque du Soleil’s mall venture appears to be more closely in line with the indoor playgrounds, climbing gyms, trampoline parks and other recreational tenants arriving at some malls. Such ventures generally pay lower rent than retail tenants.
- Cirque du Soleil entertainment group to launch family entertainment centres – Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group
- Cirque to open in malls – Castanet
- Cirque du Soleil Is Coming Soon to a Shopping Mall Near You – National Real Estate Investor
- Indoor playgrounds, trampoline parks and places in Phoenix kids can play and stay cool – azcentral
- Shopping Centers Eye Climbing – Climbing Business Journal
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: What do you think of Cirque du Soleil’s mall entertainment venture? Do you see the arrival of indoor playgrounds, climbing gyms, trampoline parks and other recreational tenants as a positive trend for malls and their retail tenants?
Poll
BrainTrust
Mark Ryski
Founder, CEO & Author, HeadCount Corporation
Ralph Jacobson
Global Retail & CPG Sales Strategist, IBM
I think this is a brilliant idea. Department store closures have created a surplus of large mall spaces — filling them with entertainment/activity offerings like Cirque du Soleil is a terrific idea. Mall operators understand that the value they offer is the consolidation of traffic to create sales opportunities for their tenants — initiatives like these will help do that. While more mall traffic doesn’t guarantee that mall retailers will do better, it creates more opportunities and that’s all the mall can do. I expect to see much more of these types of initiatives being launched in the years ahead as mall operators reinvent the mall experience.
Malls should be a place of discovery, fun and entertainment, not just for those who participate, but for onlookers who can enjoy a break from shopping. This concept is not new but it is a new treatment of the concept. Let’s watch this Ivanhoe Cambridge program carefully!
I think that Cirque du Soleil’s presence in local malls will attract curiosity seekers of all ages and participants (which will be much younger and fearless). It will open with an explosion, and then settle for a time as the public gets used to the venue and attendance numbers drop. This is a wonderful idea, but will not excuse mall managements from the responsibility to constantly create unique venues for center courts that surprise and thrill shoppers and drive up their attendance. When that happens, it could create desire for retail space. But the key phrase here is “constant reinvention.”
Club Med CREACTIVE is a unique environment. The Club literally draws the traffic by virtue of people booking a unique vacation experience. Cirque du Soleil has a ready-made audience that turns over every week or two weeks.
Creating experiences for “fresh audiences” in a club is something quite different than engaging customers in a mall who make repeat visits. In the mall environment, Cirque du Soleil has to become a main draw generating traffic.
What might make this work is that it is described as providing activities that will engage customers in hands-on experiences. That is something quite different than passively watching a show. The devil is in the details and success will depend upon the execution.
This is another attempt by mall owners to attract customers. Cirque du Soleil has a cachet that should interest shoppers. Consumers want malls to be more than stores. It’s a win-win.
I have been to half a dozen or so malls in China and except in the luxury malls (which do not have entertainment offerings for families) they all have these amenities. They also have an innumerable number of restaurants from fast food and snacks to higher-end dining. The mall closest to where I live when I am there has a movie theater with an IMAX!
Why? Because malls are not in transition in China. These malls were all developed post the Chinese Alibaba and JD successes.
I just spent a year in Hangzhou, so — ditto, ditto, ditto. The mall I went to most was Kerry Centre. It had everything from a coffee house to white table cloth restaurants to movies. And always rotating pop-ups on the ground floor. There were also interesting cultural offerings and a level above the third kiosk where you could get your cell phone repaired.
It is just a brilliant and transformative move for the Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group to provide entertainment and experiential customer journeys in malls. Malls and department stores, in general, have been in dire need of redefining what their “why” is, and what their main purposes are.
Cirque du Soleil is all about transporting experiences, and this strategic move could be a key differentiator in redefining what the mall spaces could become, as the old model is simply not resonating with today’s customers.
What better way to draw consumer interest than to turn your visit to the shopping center into an experience-focused one, vs. simply shopping? I can’t wait to see how this plays out!
Anything to bring life back to some of the lovely malls around the country is worth a try. This could definitely be a draw for families.
How about that? A family outing where you don’t have have to buy much less shop. You can just have fun, and don’t have to wait for the circus to come to town. The circus lives in town! My own equation for creating “experience” is “explore + experiment = experience.” Ex + Ex = Ex. This idea certainly fits the bill.
We all talk about the need for retail to create immersive and experiential environments. I can’t think of a more sensory-rich experience than Cirque du Soleil. Malls in the U.S. have plenty of surplus square footage. Using that real estate to create a destination will at least inspire potential customers to visit the mall. Whether this visit translates into a shopping journey remains to be seen. It will certainly be interesting to monitor its relevance and effect on the business of malls.
It’s all about the experience and every “destination,” malls included, is doing what it can to design memorable experiences that attract consumers! This is a great idea and continues to show how creative malls, and retail in general, are becoming in building experiences where shopping (and buying) becomes a secondary function to the greater experience. I expect we will continue to see more and more of these types of attractions showing up in malls across the country.
Many malls are struggling and infusing entertainment and attraction into malls is a smart strategy to drive more customer traffic. It gives consumers a reason to visit malls more frequently, which is great for the retail tenants.
A project to create the largest mall in America was recently approved by Miami-Dade County. The American Dream Miami retail theme park project lists 3.5 million square feet of retail space, and 1.5 million for entertainment. The attractions are expected to include an indoor ski slope, a lake with submarine rides, a roller coaster, aquarium and permanent Cirque du Soleil show.
The malls of the future are changing to meet evolving customer expectations. Isn’t retail interesting?
I love the idea of CREACTIVE by Cirque Du Soleil. Great name. It makes perfect sense at a Club Med, where the experience is part of your all-inclusive package, but I am not so sure of its longevity as an attraction at the local mall. Sure, it will attract attention at the onset but what happens after the newness wears off?
We spent a couple of days at the Mall of America this past December. The mall was fairly busy but the amusement park was not. Neither were most of the other attractions. When shoppers get used to seeing the same thing over and over they tend forget they are there. Now if the mall ties CREACTIVE into frequent center court events, like demos featuring locals, that’s another story.
I think one’s answer to this depends a lot on one’s perspective. To those who are used to seeing mall as primarily shopping venues, and continue to feel that is the “best use,” this will almost certainly be seen as a negative. OTOH, for those who feel the shopping phase is gone forever, this will be seen as a positive. (Or at least as a lesser negative.)
The reality, though, is that whatever semantics one wishes to use, many facilities were built with an expectation for a cash flow that just isn’t there, and that’s going to be a negative for someone.