In a former Santa Monica clothing store, young Hawk Products entrepreneurs live on Tiktok, sometimes in marathon sessions that last several hours. Fans and customers can walk on the ground that were once filled with fashionable women's clothing supports to watch them work and perhaps buy some of their goods.
Nearby, people are playing miniature golf course in an old catering area where holes are designed as tiny film sets – intentionally designed for Instagram in order to stimulate customer social media flows. Children putt during the day. After nightfall, cocktails run for the crowd of meetings and the Karaoke fair is busy.
At the bottom of the third promenade on the street, resounding strokes of pickleball fleeting came out of a vintage showcase from the 1960s for the last time by the Adidas shoe seller.
Jayna Elizabeth sells products to viewers for Sweet Sweat on Live Tiktok in Outlandish on the third promenade on the street.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The conversion of stores where customers were passive consumers in places where they participate in the action reflect changes in purchasing habits caused by Internet and a growing desire among many young people for shared experiences.
Mistmous pandemic memories of anxious confinement and forced distancing from others also play a role in the trend, said David Greensfelder, consultant in the Bay Area region.
“When we were finally released from our corner of the collective waiting period, we really wanted to go doing things,” he said. “In general, we always really want to do things.”
The concept of “experiential retail trade”, as it is known in the real estate sector, is hardly new – in the 1970s, for example, Chuck E. CHEEE Food combined with arcade games and families came to play instead of simply eating.
But the recent growth in experiential retail commerce combines the desire of active experiences with the convincing need of owners to fill the space. The shopping centers have been struggling for decades while the department stores have consolidated and fell into disgrace. The pandemic only accelerated the tendency of shopping at home and the delivery of purchases. The show is a way of making people appear in person and perhaps also frequenting other companies.
The managing director Simon Whicker is located inside Holey Moley, a miniature golf course which presents golf holes, a bar and a karaoke room.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
It is a tactic embraced in Santa Monica, where the shopping destinations of the third street and Santa Monica worked to attract customers in recent years. Among the challenges of the walk is its scale – unusually large stores in the shopping center can be difficult to fill an era when many large retailers reduce their footprints.
The owners have shown a desire to try the tenants they could have deemed improper.
“Pickleball in a brick and the mortar would have been really unknown five years ago,” said Andrew Thomas, managing director of downtown Santa Monica Inc., a private non-profit organization that promotes the city's business district.
Young entrepreneurs stand in small stands and sneak their goods live on Tiktok in Ordlandish on the third promenade on the street in Santa Monica.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
PickleWhere players can book time in the old Adidas store, is part of the sports club, the clothing retailer and the restaurant in part. Such a hybrid approach can stimulate more companies – Splatter Studio On the 4th street near the Promenade, it is partly the bar and partly an art studio, where customers have adapted to Coveralls “masterpieces” disorderly on canvas while they soak.
Group activities are attractive, said Thomas.
“Many people want more experiences in a fun and exciting destination,” he said. “The things they can do and put Instagram and have fun with their friends.”
Holey Moley Golf Club, the Mini-Golf Center, is also a restaurant, a cocktail bar and a karaoke lounge, all the elements intended to bring people to present themselves and participate in what general manager Simon Whicker qualified “competitive socialization”. The 27 holes are small but developed decorated with nostalgia for the 80s and 1990s.
The place is “a multisensory labyrinth” which includes neon signs with cheeky slogans and hand painted wall paintings, he said. After 8 p.m., while only adults can play, DJs and magicians walked the nights on weekends. Cocktails are served in ceramic unicorns and miniature baths.
Young people play miniature golf course in Holey Moley, on a route where each hole is designed to be “Instagible”.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Social media is the main engine of Outlandish, a Tiktok content factory where creators have hired and trained by the store sell products such as nutritional supplements, clothing, training equipment and gum. Brands rent stands from Outlandish. Customers can look at the creators enthusiastically present their goods to an online audience and perhaps buy what they sell.
Ordland’s goal is to combine “the excitement of live -lives live purchases with the personal link of store visits,” said CEO William August.
“We have the capacity to bring global world renowned brands here to Los Angeles customers and visitors,” he said. “This local audience can then enter their own live book and interact with viewers around the world.”
Companies are experiencing experiential retail in several formats, said Lee Shapiro, a real estate broker at Kennedy Wilson who specializes in the sale and rental of retail properties.
Years ago, many were intended for families with children, such as interior trampoline parks and Chuck E. Cheese, he said. The owners are now adults with concepts like Holey Moley and Punch Bowl Social, which combines eating and drinking with nostalgic entertainment such as billiards, bowling alley, darts and arcade games.
Public members look at the immersive show research experience at Cosm in Inglewood.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
Hollywood Park Retail Center by Inglewood Hosts Hosts CosmAn immersive theater which has plush stadium seats and an enveloping screen with 87 feet in diameter with a resolution made which gives to the place which opened last year the feeling of a scale Las Vegas sphere.
The place focused on entertainment and sports gives viewers the feeling of being in the best seats during events such as Cirque du Soleil, NBA basketball and World Series, while eating and drinking. Cosm has its own production team with the ability to shoot an event from 10 different boasts, while providing a network of a network on virtual screens in the corners.
For example, while an audience of millions looked at Freddie Freeman's Grand Chelem in match 1 From World Series from Fox angles, the Cosm crowd lived it with seats behind the Dodger Stadium plate.
The reaction in Cosm was “Pandemonium”, CEO of COSM Jeb Terry said.
Other experienced attractions use virtual reality, such as a Titanic exhibition Coming to the Beverly Center shopping center in Los Angeles in March. Visitors carrying helmets descend practically to see the wreck infamous as it exists today, then seem to return to 1912 before the ship flows and wanders in public spaces such as the large staircase, dining rooms and animated decks.
The director general of the Beverly Center hopes that the exhibition will attract people to the shopping center and will help keep them there.
“Customers are looking for today to do more in shopping centers than simply shopping,” said Brian Parent, and can spend a day there if they can walk, eat and have fun in an immersive attraction like a VR film or event that they find convincing.
“You are going to have all the age groups that want to experience it,” he said.
At the Topanga Village Mall in Warner Center, people carrying VR equipment on their heads and bodies can fight virtual zombies and other attackers or compete in a simulation of “Calmars” to VR sandbox.
Young people lead the tendency to active participation, said Greensfelder.
“Among generation Z, you see a huge desire to really have experiences in person,” he said. “They return to the shopping center.”
For social media users such as Tiktok, “it does not surprise me at all that this cohort is very experienced on experience, as opposed to material things. They also want the experience to be in person. »»
