In our October edition’s Leisure Insight, Karrie Goldberg, Co-Founder of Outernet Venues LTD and Founder & CEO of The Kagency takes some time out of her regular schedule to discuss how scarcity is redefining the leisure sector.
For as long as consumers have shopped, scarcity has been the ultimate hook. A Rolex limited edition, a Hermès bag, a Louis Vuitton limited run – “temporary” has always been dressed up as “exclusivity” dating back to the 60s (I still have my McQueen Puma boots). These brands, who used to be fine art adjacent, took a page from their colleagues who started the limited edition prints in the late 19th century. Those collector editions were not a marketing ploy to start, rather a necessity due to the plates bring worn out over time, but led to a rampant demand from the buyers to own a “numbered” edition.
So when did the real estate industry start to pay attention to temporary? And how has this impacted the leisure industry?
To understand how the culture of temporary began in the real estate sector you have to look back a few years.
2008: The First Crack in the Foundation
Before the folks at Lehman Brothers rocked our world with a global financial crisis, there was no place for what people now refer to as “pop-ups”. The model was simple: lock in secure tenants with long-term leases and trade on that to finance future growth. Overnight, that equation broke, leaving major commercial developers scratching their heads.
It was during that time that I was offered my first commercial property: The ask was simple – “come up with a plan – revenue, marketing, anything but letting it sit empty”. It was a major “sliding glass doors” moment for my business. From Cartier to Chanel, Madonna to Basquiat, we proved short-term wasn’t a stop-gap, it became the new business model and cultural engine. On average, short-term use generates three to five times that of a standard annual lease.
From Auction Houses to Amusement Parks
With sectors in luxury, art and retail being underpinned by temporary moments, the leisure industry had no choice but to step into the arena, but they were late to the game.
Fast forward a few more years and renegade artists like Banksy weaponised impermanence. His 2015 Dismaland lasted less than four weeks, pulled 150,000 visitors on £3 tickets and generated more than £20M for the local economy.
Scarcity has leapt from the auction houses and boutiques into theatre, Troubadour Theatres born that same year, a pop-up theatre group launching in Kings Cross. At a time when that area was desperate for regeneration, the group was clocking over 6,000 visitors a day to their shows and helped drive other leisure activities in the surrounding buildings.
When discussing the project with the Theatre’s Chairman, Rodney Birrell, he pointed out: “The ethos of the Troubadour team is to create theatres (and film and television studios) on land which at some point in the future will be developed or re-developed. Troubadour creates entertainment centres at a fraction of the cost of a permanent installation and at a fraction of the construction time. Everything from the walls, the heating and air-conditioning units, the washrooms, the configuration of stage and seats can all be moved. A producer wants a normal proscenium stage – no problem. A theatre in the round? Not an issue! These, by the way, are not theatres in tents but are semi-permanent buildings which can be moved to other sites within several months as opposed to the years it would take to build a permanent structure. In fact, when the time comes for the theatre to be moved, over 95 per cent of the building can be relocated to a new site and the theatres can be adapted to fit the new location.” Yet another example of not everything has to be permanent to succeed.
You will see a nod to a lot of this in the venues built at Outernet, part of our goal was to create the world’s best blank canvas to let artists and brands tell their own story. The idea being, you will never see the same thing twice within the four walls.
- For consumers – urgency and limited availability transform casual interest into must-attend behaviour
- For leisure brands – temporary formats reduce capital risk, enabling bold experimentation and rapid iteration
- For landlords – short-term leasing unlocks higher returns and dynamic activation of dormant spaces
Imagine a network of adaptive theatres, cultural hubs and creative spaces across major cities, each designed for short-term activation. Leisure brands could plug in, test bold new offerings and scale successful concepts globally.
Temporary has always been a trick of desire, but in leisure, it has become something more, it has created value by threatening to disappear. Short-term collaboration is no longer a band-aid for vacancy; it’s the actual business model. It creates urgency for consumers, flexibility for brands and outsized returns for landlords who are willing to adapt.
