MALLing up north...

One of our regular venue for our Black & Decker Fathers' Day celebrations is the Annex of SM City Fairview. We've done the rounds of SM Malls from Megamall to Southmall, but it's here in Fairview where we get to go back (several times) to do these events.

"Location, location, location" -- as proof that it really matters where you hold events like these, especially for sales and marketing purposes, this year we were given a space in that large activity area at the far end of the annex building for the first three days, then we transferred to the smaller space in between SM Hypermarket and Starbucks on the last day. More power tools were sold on the last day than all of the sales for the first three days combined.

Our original location near the escalator beside BDO.

"Build It, It's Yours" Booth - mall goers get to build small woodworking projects (tools, materials and tech assistance provided by Black & Decker) and take home the fruits of their labor. 

This second location is actually our first preference, this is where we have been doing events in this mall over the years. But last minute adjustments brought us to that bigger space, which also has heavy foot traffic, but just didn't measure up to our original location in terms of bringing in the sales.

In terms of ease of ingress and egress, the mall administration is quite supportive. During our ingress, our first location was quite accessible from the nearest RDU (Receiving and Dispatching Unit). Our truck had ample space for unloading all our materials, and a ramp connected the loading deck to the rest of the mall. On the last day, we are allowed to egress through the nearest mall entrance (near Starbucks), so our truck only had to drive up to this spot to load up.

Based on previous experience with this mall's crowd, we kept the layout "open" -- with as less barricades as possible, save for the critical backstage and production areas. It is an observed fact that mall goers in general rarely venture into areas that are heavily barricaded, even if you continually announce that they can come in for free. And even if some of our display and announcement panels were quite taller than the mall barricades, they are more inclined to come in, as long as they don't see those barriers (either the metal ones covered with logo-printed "sleeves" or the retractable belt barriers).