UK NEWS
Media Circus for 2010 shopping event
With the UK capital gearing up for Shop West End VIP Day, the world’s biggest shopping day on Saturday 5 December, the news couldn’t be better for Media Circus Ltd, the events, marketing partnerships and sponsorship company responsible for staging the event. The company has been re-appointed by organiser New West End Company to stage 2010’s Shop West End VIP Day and the Christmas Lights Switch On, the two most prestigious shopping dates in the West End’s retail calendar.

Linda Ewing, Managing Director, Media Circus Ltd, said: “We are proud to represent the West End for some of the biggest scaled events for London as we continue to deliver bottom line results to event sponsors and participating businesses.”
Iconic destination for Cardiff
The Benoy-designed extension to St David’s shopping centre, Cardiff, opened its doors on 22 October, revealing more than 100,000sq m of brand new retail space. The development has rejuvenated the existing St David’s arcade and created a new landmark retail centre, in the heart of Wales’ Capital City. More than one million shoppers visited the centre in its first week of trading.

The combined 140 000sq m centre, which houses the largest John Lewis department
store outside of London, showcases the best of the UK high street in its new two-level
grand arcade.

Benoy's design for St David’s means it seamlessly blends into the urban fabric, sympathetically taking account of Cardiff’s geography and history.
The £675M mixed-use development includes more than 300 residential units, the environmentally leading civic library, which has been awarded ‘Project of the Year in Sustainability’ by Constructing Excellence and £20M of improvements to the public realm.
Visual merchandisers to display their 2060 vision
Retailers will dazzle the public with their visions of the future through ‘skillVM 2010’, a visual merchandising competition launched in October.

Visual Merchandisers entering the contest will build their store windows as they imagine they will look in 2060 – all live on public display in shopping centres across the country.
Skillsmart Retail is calling on both professional and student visual merchandisers to enter the competition, which is now in its third year and is designed to highlight the high level of talent required to work in retail.

Anne Seaman, Chief Executive at Skillsmart Retail said: “skillVM 2010 gives retailers a real opportunity to show off not only their skills but also their vision.

“The competition offers a great chance for retailers to boost their profiles and competitive edge. With the inspirational subject this year we are looking forward to seeing how they rise to the challenge.”

skillVM 2010 will see teams given a designated space and budget to design their future visions, with both student and professional categories running simultaneously.
The professional teams will create displays using their own products, while the students’ work will focus on a fictitious ‘dream pillow’ product given to them by competition organisers.

The competition will run in three stages, with the first phase seeing teams submitting their designs on paper for review by a panel of judges. The second stage will see the best teams selected for the national heats where they will build their sets in regional shopping centres across the UK. The third stage is the live final where the top three teams will build their displays at the In-Store Show at Marketing Live at Olympia in June 2010.
Consumers to have a merry christmas

Christmas this year may be the second one consumers have faced in a recession, but new research from Mintel reveals that retail sales are still growing in volume and value terms and that this Christmas is set to be good news for the high street. Indeed, Mintel forecasts growth of two per cent from last year in retail sales in December, driven by the recovery in consumer confidence, continuing low interest rates and a mini boom in sales before VAT goes back up on 1 January.

The research shows that even though consumers will continue to be a little more cautious this Christmas, the number planning to spend ‘a lot less’ on gifts has fallen three per cent year-on-year. In addition, 20 per cent of consumers claim that although money is tighter, they will still splash out for Christmas – a figure unchanged from 2008 and therefore unaffected by the economic crisis this year.

Richard Perks, Director of Retail at Mintel said: “There’s no doubt that consumer demand has held up far better than anyone expected a year ago and that is entirely down to the cuts in interest rates.”
 
 
  Paramount Publications Ltd Suite 15, Hardmans Business Centre, New Hall Hey Road, Rawtenstall BB4 6HH UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1706 212200 Fax: +44 (0) 1706 211782 Email: info@rli.uk.com