Courting Families

Dubai Mall by Nishat Khan, courtesy Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/nishatkhan/12033808253

Dubai Mall by Nishat Khan, courtesy Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/nishatkhan/12033808253

Special Events Attract the Family Market

Parents hunting for great places to go hang out with friends, grab a bite, shop a bit, or entertain their kids for a few hours, need look no further than their local shopping center. While malls are usually thought to be family friendly, some centers are pulling out all the stops to foster that image.

“In general, the entire industry recognizes the value of being family friendly,” says Alice Love, Senior Manager, Marketing for Pacific View Mall in Ventura and La Cumbre Plaza in Santa Barbara. But her centers, both owned by the Macerich Company, go the extra mile to court the family market.

For example, La Cumbre Plaza’s weekly Certified Farmers Market — which already drew hundreds of visitors in search of fresh organic produce, flowers and other gourmet goods– recently ran a promotion inviting children to experience the farmers market by offering them a special tour each week.

“They would stop at the different vendors and learn how that particular fruit or vegetable is grown,” says Love.

Upon completing the tour, they were taken into a store that happened to specialize in children’s furniture, where they got to do an art project. They created their own placemat, which was then laminated so they could take it home to use. Each child was also given a token to purchase something from the farmers market.

San Luis Obispo, has taken the farmers market concept a step further, regularly drawing crowds of 10,000 downtown during the summertime, and about half that during the winter. People of all ages flock to the downtown shopping area where the streets are blocked off every Thursday night for barbecued ribs, fresh strawberries, local wines, and of course, kid-friendly entertainment like puppet shows, balloon animals and live music.

Some very lively music, the clanging of budding young percussionists and drummers, can be heard at Ventura’s Pacific View Mall’s “Kids View” gathering. Children and their parents gather at the food court each week for what Love calls, “educational entertainment.”

The playbill varies. “One week it might be entertainment with marionettes, then we may have someone that comes in with musical instruments and all the kids get to play with them, which is quite a racket,” she says.

While programs like “Kids View” cater to the preschool crowd, who need parental supervision, other centers are finding that drop-off educational programs like SCORE!, Sylvan Learning Center, Kumon Math & Reading Center, and California Learning Center offer the perfect opportunity for kids to work their brains while mom gets her shopping done, unencumbered.

Working with nonprofit community groups is also a great way to bring families to a center, and engender goodwill for your business. La Cumbre Plaza recently drew large crowds when it hosted the local Girl Scouts’ Amazing Cookie Kick-Off event. In addition to cookie relays and games, there was a cookie rally where some of Santa Barbara’s top restaurants and chefs showcased creative desserts made with Girl Scout cookies that were then judged by a panel of local celebrities. The winning recipes were showcased at the restaurant, on television, and in the local newspaper, thus supplying loads of free publicity for both the Girl Scouts and the mall.

Signature family events can help create new community traditions, like Pacific View Mall’s annual Lemon Fest, held the weekend after Labor Day. Tying into the center’s heritage as a lemon grove in the 1920s, the festival features live entertainment, a kids play area, arts and crafts booths, and food booths.

“There’s something for everybody in the family to do,” says Love, whose team has been successfully running the Lemon Fest for the past five years.

Also drawing on their agricultural heritage for festival inspiration — and additional retail traffic — are downtown Watsonville, with its Main Street Watsonville Annual Strawberry Festival, and Carpinteria’s annual Avocado Festival.

Finally, there’s nothing like annual holiday events to bring out the kids and their parents. La Cumbre Plaza, Pacific View Mall, Main Street in Huntington Beach, and the Pismo Beach Pier are among the many shopping areas that feature in-store trick or treating. And it would be a challenge to find a mall that doesn’t have a photo-friendly Santa available the day after Thanksgiving.

While family friendly holiday activities abound in December, Pacific View Mall offers something unique, at least in California. The first Saturday in December brings “Holiday Traditions, Ventura Style” to the region, trucking in 30 tons of snow for the annual celebration, which concludes with fireworks, and Santa lighting the community Christmas tree.

It’s wet, it’s messy, and it’s incredibly fun, says one regular attendee.

Sounds a lot like parenting, doesn’t it.

Originally published in California Centers Magazine on June 1, 2006.

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