Tag Archives: New York

LEGO has revamped its ‘retail entertainment’ with New York City flagship LEGO Store

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The LEGO Group has opened the doors of an immersive new LEGO Store in New York City, setting up shop in a two-storey location on Fifth Avenue as the first flagship store to feature new retail formats.

Elements of the innovative new store will be introduced to more than 100 stores worldwide in the coming year, the toy maker has stated, as it highlights a new format designed to ‘create an immersive world of LEGO bricks’ by blending digital and physical experiences.

The New York City flagship has been developed as part of the company’s strategy to innovate its stores in line with consumer demands for more personalised and interactive retail offerings, as well as recognition of the role that brick and mortar stores play in strengthening connections with the brand, despite the surge in online shopping.

Colette Burke, chief commercial officer at The LEGO Group, said: “For a number of years we’ve seen the trend towards people visiting stores for high-quality, entertaining brand experiences. Over the past year our fans have missed personal and tactile interactions with the brand and we can’t wait to welcome them back.”

The LEGO Group spent two years developing the new retail concept and researching what shoppers and children want from a LEGO store visit. They found that people were keen for more opportunities to play with bricks, participate in brick-inspired activities, personalise their experience and have fun.

As a result, LEGO has unveiled a suite of impactful features in the New York City Store, including an experience that immerses people and their LEGO builds in a virtual world. Called Brick Lab, the in-store technology brings walls, floors, and ceiling to life with light, sound, and music for an interactive build and play experience.

Meanwhile, an interactive Tree of Discovery is made from 880,000 LEGO elements and acts as the store’s centrepiece. It stands as ‘an expression of the LEGO Group’s commitment to being inclusive and having a positive impact on society and the planet.’

An interactive Storytelling Table has been designed with adult fans of LEGO in mind, enabling them to bring the stories behind sets available in store to life. It shows early product designs and prototypes, lifts the lid on the development process and allow fans to virtually ‘meet’ the LEGO designers.

The store’s Personalisation Studio invites visitors to make a memento of their visit. In it, they can reimagine themselves in LEGO form, either as a portrait from the Mosaic Maker or a Minifigure from the LEGO Minifigure Factory.

Elsewhere, with LEGO Expression, visitors can have fun with LEGO Minifigures who mimic their facial expressions, while the new Fifth Avenue store will also include larger than life builds of icons of the city, such as a taxicab to sit in, an Empire State Buyilding and One World Trade skyscraper, the lights and billboards of Broadway and Time Square, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Thor, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, and Captain America, and the Ghostbusters Firehouse and crew.

The new store format has been designed to be flexible so that it can work in LEGO stores of all sizes, as well as in third-party retail partners’ stores. It will be introduced to over 100 LEGO stores around the world during the coming year, as well as select global partner retailers.

The LEGO Group currently has around 731  branded stores in 50 countries around the world and plans to open 120 new stores during 2021. In addition to investing in brick and mortar, the LEGO Group will continue to invest in building its e-commerce capabilities.

In 2020, the number of visitors to its LEGO.com online store doubled to a quarter of a billion and this growth has continued in 2021.

Colette said: “We’re seeing significant growth across e-commerce channels, but we also understand the distinct and important role that each of our retail channels plays in building the brand. We will continue to invest in innovating across all our channels to create compelling experiences online, in-store and with our retail partners.”

Check it out

The Brick Lab

Designed exclusively for LEGO flagship stores, the 20-minute themed experience uses innovative technology to bring walls, floors, and ceilings to life with interactive animated content, lighting, sound, and music to invite kids (and grown-ups) to play in a virtual world that plays right along with them.

Each visitor will have the opportunity to meet the characters on screen and let their imaginations run wild as they build their own creation, scan their build and then watch it become a living part of the Brick Lab in seconds so they can play both physically and virtually.

The Tree of Discovery

The tree, which took 1,900 hours to construct and is made of over 880,000 LEGO bricks, symbolises the LEGO Group’s commitment to having a positive impact on society and the planet.

A key feature is its bright rainbow trunk which houses a whole host of wonderful hidden details and secrets for shoppers to discover such as mini-scenes, kaleidoscopes and picture viewers from DUPLO, Technic and the LEGO System in Play bricks.

The Mosaic Maker

Which captures your image and creates your own personalized LEGO mosaic portrait in just a few minutes.

The LEGO Minifigure Factory

Allows you to design and create a unique LEGO Minifigure (complete with a brick with your name and a special box) – the perfect souvenir for your visit or gift for someone else.

LEGO Expressions

Ever wanted a LEGO Minifigure to copy your every move?  Well now you can with the magical LEGO Expressions.  Simply stand in front of the screen and Lady Liberty and her NYC pals will copy every facial expression you make.

Exclusive NYC inspired LEGO models

Highlights include a talking Statue of Liberty Minifigure, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes such as Thor, Spiderman, Iron Man, Hulk and Captain America who’s standing on top of an iconic yellow NYC taxi cab, a New York cityscape, a wall featuring LEGO recreations of famous Broadway show and Movie LEGO posters, the Ghostbusters Firehouse featuring the full Ghostbusters crew, Stay-Puft Marshmellow Man and Slimer.

 

The world’s only Harry Potter flagship store opens its doors in New York

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The doors to the new flagship Harry Potter store in New York have finally been opened to the public, greeting fans with a 220-pound model of Fawkes the Phoenix, and a host of magical creatures and hand-made props.

Billed as an ‘immersive retail experience’ for the Harry Potter global fan base, the Harry Potter New York store finally opened its doors to the public last week, wowing them with themed retail zones, including an area inspired by the Dark Arts, complete with Voldemort’s horcux, Nagini, bursting through the ceiling.

The world’s only Harry Potter flagship store boasts 15 of these themed areas to explore, playing host to thousands of products. Fans found themselves immersed in areas inspired by Honeydukes to find Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans and Chocolate Frogs, before stopping under the Dirigible Plum tree to find their favourite creature soft toy.

Customers were even invited to step into Hagrid’s boots to see how they measure up and duel other customers at the store’s interactive wand table.

”We’re delighted to be welcoming fans to Harry Potter New York for a completely new shopping experience,” said Sarah Roots, EVP Warner Bros. Worldwide Tours and Retail. “Not only will visitors find the largest range of Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts products under one roof, they will also get to discover up-close some of the hand-crafted props that were seen in the films, use our unique photo opportunities and experience the incredible theming throughout the store.”

Harry Potter New York has a virtual queueing system in place. When customers visit the store, they will scan a QR code to join a virtual queue and return when notified. Harry Potter New York is open from 10am to 9pm Monday to Saturday and 11am to 7pm on Sundays.

Flowhaven bolsters is US sales team with a suit of licensing expert new hires

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The licensing relationship management platform, Flowhaven, has strengthened its US sales team with a raft of new leadership hires, including the appointment of Adam Christensen as the US sales director, and Chris Davlin and Rebecca Dennis as US sales managers.

The new additions to the growing Flowhaven team will report directly to Jessica Trinca, the firm’s US general manager.

This suite of new hires is just the latest in a series of developments to sustain the company’s accelerated growth. Flowhaven had a record-breaking first quarter in 2021 with a number of customer acquisitions across new verticals including universities, record labels and more.

In the last year, Flowhaven raised $16M in funding led by Sapphire Sport, and more than doubled its team in Helsinki, Finland, Los Angeles and London. The company also has plans to open offices this year in New York, Berlin and Tokyo to support customers locally.

“Hiring the best and brightest leaders has always been core to our company’s success, and Adam, Chris, and Rebecca are the perfect example,” said Kalle Torma, Flowhaven.

“Not only do they have proven expertise leading teams at companies like Electronic Arts, Disney, and Lucasfilm; they also embody Flowhaven’s values of collaboration, community and trust. Their contributions will be key for us as we continue to innovate and expand globally.”

Christensen brings more than 15 years of sales and operations experience to Flowhaven. As US sales director, he will be responsible for the company’s national sales strategy and execution. Most recently, he served as Director of Alliances and Partner Sales at Claravine, where he led the company’s strategic channel efforts. Previously, he was senior licensing business development manager at Electronic Arts managing the company’s strategic brand licensing initiatives.

There, Christensen closed seven-figure partnerships with household brands such as Walmart, Toys-R-Us, Barnes & Noble, GameStop, Target, Liverpool and many more. Previous roles included Disney Interactive, among others.

As US sales manager, Dennis will be responsible for scaling revenue operations across the Western United States. Prior to joining Flowhaven, she held several positions at Global Licensing Group, a division of Informa, with a focus on Licensing Global Magazine.

She also worked on the company’s Licensing Expo and Brand Licensing Europe events. Prior to joining Flowhaven, Rebecca spent nearly a decade in sales and revenue operations positions within the fashion industry.

Chris Davlin joins Flowhaven as US sales manager and will oversee the brand’s continued growth across the Eastern United States, with a focus on New York City where Flowhaven plans to open offices by end of year. Her responsibilities will include synergizing the company’s sales efforts with centralized marketing support to deliver curated content to experts in the licensing space.

Previously, Davlin held a number of sales roles at such companies as Hint, and ran her own licensing and business development consultancy. She also held licensing roles at prominent brands, including Lucasfilm for Disney Consumer Products, where she acted as Project Manager for Star Wars Day 2014. There, she successfully executed Maythe4th campaign, performed all preparation for Disney Consumer Products division, and doubled Star Wars Day social media presence by exceeding 2.1B impressions and 1.1M global posts.

The Toy Association outlines plans to move New York Toy Fair to May 2021

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The Toy Association has laid out its plans to host the annual New York International Toy Fair in May 2021. In a President’s letter issued by the association and penned by Steve Pasierb, it has underlined its mission to ‘bring the industry back together as soon as it is safe to do so.’

The Toy Association has therefore set the date of the 2021 International Toy Fair as May 1st to 4th 2021 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City.

“We have been presented with a window in the opening days of May and we are willing, ready, and able to put resources toward the show and any other projects that will continue to help members grow their businesses,” said Pasierb in the group’s official statement.

“When the time was right to provide a digital solution, we did just that by leveraging our existing technology to build and offer Toy Fair Everywhere digital market weeks. When the time was right to provide companies with private virtual preview opportunities with key retailers – Target, Toys“R”Us Canada, and Meijer – we did.

And when the time is right for a return to in-person meetings, we will make it happen.”

In his open letter to the international toy community, Pasierb said the following:

While none of us can be certain what the nation and world will look like some seven months in the distance, we all need the promise of a future for the toy and play industry, a return to a degree of business normalcy, and to reclaim some aspects of our collective pre-COVID-19 lives.

The Toy Association’s trade events effectively and efficiently help members and the industry do more business more often, whether large- or small-scale. We canvassed our primary audience of retail buyers and toy sellers to determine whether they want us to plan for a May 2021 tradeshow. They said yes! We heard from them that the first few days of May have high potential, and the timing is relevant to specialty, long-lead, and mass market retailers. May serves specialty in time for Q4 2021; is well-timed for long lead and mass to conduct or complete Spring/Summer 2022 line reviews; and may even offer some early views for Q4 2022.

There is also a healthy slate of toy, entertainment, and licensed properties targeted for 2022 that need to be acted upon. As always, Toy Fair New York is a key opportunity for influential brand owners, licensors, licensees, retailers, and manufacturers to connect in the media and financial capital of the world, New York City. To be certain, this not the Toy Fair NY we have traditionally known as we anticipate smaller footprints, a different exhibitor mix, less extravagant if not workmanlike displays, and simply a focus on making the human and product connections that Zoom and similar substitutes have not been able to offer.

Protecting everyone’s health and safety remains paramount. We are right now working closely with every entity connected to Toy Fair, including federal, state, and city officials; contractors; and support teams, to ensure a safe environment. The show will be designed to reflect these proven approaches and will follow every prescribed health and safety protocol.

We understand that not everyone will be comfortable in an in-person environment, which is why we continue to expand our other digital engagement opportunities: Toy Fair Everywhere, which is rolling out its year-round version later this year, and the aforementioned private preview program with key retailers.

What if the situation does not turn in our favor in spring of 2021? If at any time we feel that Toy Fair NY 2021 cannot be produced in a safe manner, we will cancel the show. If the event needs to be canceled, as is the long-standing show policy, any monies paid will shift toward Toy Fair New York in February 2022, when it returns to the newly expanded and state-of-the-art Javits Center. In fact, almost all 2021 exhibitors had already shifted to 2022, so May again presents a more immediate opportunity.

Our community made it clear they did not want Toy Fair NY 2021 to simply become virtual. Rather, the connections, ability to experience products first-hand, and return to some form of human connection in doing business have proven to reign supreme. Together looking toward May with optimism reflects the very nature of the toy and play community – resilience, tenacity, confidence, and a willingness to find new ways forward.

The immediate next steps are the one-on-one conversations our account executives are having with exhibitors and the conversations our team is having with retailers and other members of the show’s audience. Much more news and specificity are to come. For now, mark your calendar and together we will do whatever we can to make good things happen in a safe, healthy, and business-building manner.

WildBrain CPLG to build lifestyle licensing programme for The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The entertainment, sport and brand licensing agency, WildBrain CPLG, has signed a deal with The Metropolitan Museum of Art to exclusively represent the iconic New York institution as it looks to build out a licensing programme across EMEA.

Housing it under its Lifestyle division, WildBrain CPLG will assemble a licensing programme for The Met designed to appeal to families, millennials, and a diverse international audience across categories, including homewares, apparel, accessories, stationery, gifting, toys and activities, health and beauty, and collaborations.

The licensing agency will create a merchandise programme that combines The Met’s collections and art works, with the diversity and energy of New York and the museum’s mission to ‘collect, study, conserve and present significant works of art across all times and cultures in order to connect people to creativity, knowledge and ideas.’ The team will initially focus on building product ranges that utilise assets from a cross-section of The Met’s 17 curatorial departments and are tied into current fashion and homeware trends.

Victoria Whellans, group brands director at WildBrain CPLG Lifestyle, said: “The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world’s most dynamic and inspiring museums and we’re very excited to add this prestigious institution to our expanding Lifestyle portfolio. As we begin building a unique licensing programme which will reinforce The Met as both educational and accessible, we look forward to bringing fresh, authentic and unexpected product ranges to a diverse selection of consumers across EMEA.”

Lisa Silverman Meyers, head of licensing and partnerships at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, added: “WildBrain CPLG has a unique passion for storytelling and shares our belief in the power that museums have to foster understanding through art and culture. Their dedication to our goal of bringing The Met to new places in new ways, paired with WildBrain CPLG’s proven track record of success throughout EMEA makes them an ideal partner for the Museum.”

Founded in 1870, The Metropolitan Museum of Art lives in three iconic sites in New York City – The Met Fifth Avenue, The Met Breuer, and The Met Cloisters. The museum is home to two million works spanning 5,000 years of art and ranks as the most-visited art museum in the Western hemisphere.

The Met is also the number one tourist attraction in New York City, with over seven million visits and 30 million web visitors in 2019. The Met celebrated its 150th anniversary on 13th April 2020.