Are you sitting on a prime location but struggling with an outdated property and a small space, wondering how to attract young people? A great location is like holding a winning hand, but the old property and small size can feel like two cards that don’t add much value. Don’t worry! Today, let’s explore how Giant Island can help you turn this hand into a winning strategy!
In this article, we will dive into some highly practical and down-to-earth renovation strategies to transform your small-scale, outdated property into a trendy hotspot that young people can’t resist. From unique space layouts to creative business combinations and exciting event planning, we’ll unlock the full potential of commercial transformation.
PART1. Space Scene :
Creating a Trendy Magnetic Field
Diverse and distinctive spaces that resonate with young people are key to attracting and retaining customers in commercial settings. Personalized spaces enhance a project’s memorability, draw in distant customers to experience and take photos, and boost foot traffic, ultimately improving conversion rates. Commercial spaces can be designed around trendy elements that appeal to young people, such as fashion, technology, sustainability, Chinese style, anime culture, and collectibles. These unique consumer environments spark young people’s interest in exploring malls, change their stereotypical views of shopping centers, and encourage more spontaneous spending and experience-driven purchases.
Riyadh HOUSE OF HYPE
HOUSE OF HYPE is Saudi Arabia’s largest immersive entertainment park, seamlessly blending the real world with the virtual. It allows visitors to engage in virtual interactions across a series of rooms, featuring 29 immersive attractions and 32 gaming experiences.
Here, every door you open leads to a brand-new world. The dazzling lights combined with almost 360-degree holographic projections create scenes that could only be imagined in science fiction movies, making you feel as if you’re inside an enormous kaleidoscope.
Since its debut in early 2023, the “Bailian ZX Creative Fun Zone” has seen tremendous success. The sight of long lines of young people waiting for figurines has stunned many in the commercial industry, leaving them both amazed and somewhat puzzled.
VR, claw machines, card games, and other entertainment formats are all favorites among young people. While shopping for goods, they can also enjoy activities like playing VR games and trying their luck at claw machines. Among them, VR ZONE SHANGHAI, the first store in Shanghai, is opened by Bandai Namco’s popular VR-themed entertainment experience, VR ZONE. The store features hot themes like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Mario Kart, Gundam, Godzilla, and Hospital Escape, all of which are beloved IPs in the world of anime culture.
With a rich variety of formats targeting anime culture enthusiasts, the venue offers unique experiences beyond pop-up stores and exhibitions. Limited edition displays, one-day store managers, large-screen support events, special figurine lotteries, themed cafés, and parade parties are just a few examples. Compared to other shopping centers, the activities here are exceptionally exclusive and rare.
Nantong Longxin Sports World
Longxin Sports World is designed as a family-oriented sports and entertainment space for people aged 3 to 35, combining gaming, sports competitions, adventure challenges, and trendy play areas. The 30,000 square-meter, three-story space is divided into four main zones: a sports brand retail area, a trendy play center for young people, an adventure and fantasy world, and a futuristic tech sports amusement park. With a “fashionable and trendy sports” style, it showcases a bold, avant-garde image and positioning, aiming to create a new type of sports entertainment experience and become a new “traffic magnet” for commercial complexes.
Longxin Sports World adopts a trendy sports space design, featuring vibrant colors and creative sports-themed check-in points that resonate with the brand’s youthful vibe. The use of colorful acrylic materials and large silver elements aggressively captures the players’ attention, creating a strong sense of futuristic technology that makes Longxin Sports World highly attractive. Each project is uniquely designed with its own entrance, breaking away from the traditional small shop model in shopping centers. The space is transformed into a free, open entertainment and social hub, organically combining public areas and play zones, fully embodying Giant Island’s design philosophy of “space equals play.”
PART2 Brand Formats :
Gathering a Diverse New Force
Attracting trendy young people with emerging brands is a key element in commercial development, and the tenant mix is one of the most crucial aspects. How to combine business formats and which brands to choose are factors that need careful consideration. Nowadays, many local entrepreneur-led brands not only offer innovative products and services but also dare to innovate across boundaries. With diverse activities and unique store scenes, they create differentiated experiences that resonate more with consumers, making shopping centers more distinctive and appealing. As the consumer demographic becomes increasingly younger, the tenant mix should focus on youthfulness, uniqueness, diversity, and harmony.
Japan
ROUND 1 Stadium
Founded in 1980 in Osaka, Japan, ROUND1 is a large indoor multi-entertainment facility aimed at providing recreational activities for local residents. It features a variety of facilities, including bowling alleys, dartboards, ping pong tables, roller skating rinks, KTV rooms, and arcade centers, catering to the entertainment needs of consumers across different age groups.
The entertainment facilities cover the needs of all age groups, with areas designed for both adult and children audiences. It is one of the best places for family entertainment. The bowling lanes, obstacle courses, and large sports-themed amusement attractions are suitable for all ages, providing fun while promoting physical fitness.
Shanghai HAI550
HAI550, China’s first commercial complex centered around sustainable lifestyles, covers a total area of 7,157.91㎡ and is considered a “new species” in offline retail. The transformation of HAI550 breathes new life into an old building, serving as a model of revitalization. It stands as an experiment in sustainability and a non-standard commercial debut in an old neighborhood.
In the last century, the building at 550 Huaihai Middle Road underwent various transformations, including the Donghua Grand Theatre, Paris Grand Theatre, Shidai Huaihai Cinema, and the world’s first Barbie flagship store. Its biggest challenge, however, was its spatial layout: the high floors required a sufficient amount of content to draw people vertically, while the small floor areas on each level made it difficult to create standout features.
After being vacant for 12 years, the building at 550 Huaihai Middle Road finally welcomed HAI550. The shopping center has a total of 8 floors, not large in scale, but the design cleverly divides the space into key highlights. Centered around the sustainable living concept of “naturally occurring” and “nature-related,” HAI550 features eight themes. The first floor serves as a public space for visitors to relax, while the 2nd to 6th floors are divided into four main sections: Wilderness, Design, Sustainability, and Living, forming the core concept of “sustainable” foot traffic.
Changchun Quan Yun Hui Family Sports Center
Quan Yun Hui Family Sports Center is the first all-age sports park in Changchun built around the “light sports” concept. It integrates sports competitions, recreational activities, team-building parties, and an early childhood development center within an indoor sports space.
Originally an automobile museum, with a gym on the second floor, the transformation into an all-age family sports park was achieved through careful design. The goal was to make full use of the varied ceiling heights to enhance the sense of space for physical activities. During the construction, the development philosophy focused on “guiding interest in sports, improving athletic abilities, and creating a healthy lifestyle,” with “light sports” as the core, to build a one-stop family sports center.
Giant Island aligns the concepts of a love for life and sports with family-oriented sports and entertainment, creating an emotional connection with consumers. The immersive experience within the park enhances customer engagement, increases repeat purchase rates, and encourages word-of-mouth promotion, ultimately generating positive marketing results and economic benefits.
PART 3 Space Scene :
Creating a Trendy Magnetic Field
Using operational activities to unlock consumption potential, activities like cycling, skateboarding, rock climbing, camping, music festivals, theater festivals, and themed parties have become mainstream social activities for young people in the city. These activities open up the mind and body, connecting sports with nature, while providing fun through casual exploration. Behind this trend lies the growing consumer interest in niche communities, where young people are eager to spend on their passions. Project operations should be guided by this, creating unique marketing activities that allow these communities to find their “comfort zone” in shopping centers. This makes it easier to spark the desire for young customers to check in and share their experiences, attracting more foot traffic and enhancing the project’s influence.
Singapore Funan
Funan has created Singapore’s first shopping center where cycling enthusiasts can ride through the entire mall. Additionally, Funan offers a range of services for cyclists, including showers, lockers, air pumps, and bicycle repair tools. The mall also features 166 bike “parking spaces,” allowing cyclists to easily park their bikes and shop whenever they wish.
Rising from two levels underground to 15 meters above ground, Funan features 50 climbing routes, with a 4-story rock wall becoming the tallest indoor climbing facility in Singapore’s urban area. The mall also boasts a dedicated esports zone, designed for hosting esports competitions. The staircase connecting the two floors provides a perfect space for both spectators to relax and enjoy the event.
Tokyo Yanaka District
HAGISO in Tokyo’s Yanaka District is a two-story small “complex” that combines a café, bar, gallery, and indoor playground. Located on a side street off the main commercial street, HAGISO can be easily spotted. Originally rented as a dormitory for architecture students at Tokyo University of the Arts, the building had fallen into disrepair. The owner had planned to turn it into a parking lot. However, the students who had lived there for seven years were emotionally attached to the space and wanted to repurpose it as an exhibition venue as a farewell. To their surprise, the farewell exhibition went viral online, leading to the building being bought by a graduate and completely renovated. It was reborn as a “mini cultural facility” in the Yanaka district.
The rapid rise in popularity of HAGISO inspired developers to create more activity spaces in the area to enhance the district’s overall appeal. As a result, the second project, hanare, was born. Initially, hanare was an unused vacant house in the Yanaka district. The owner had been unable to afford the renovation of the old building, and it remained idle. Due to its strikingly similar background to HAGISO, the building was chosen by developers as the second renovation project in the Yanaka district, further revitalizing the commercial activity on the street.
PART 4
Event Planning and Community Operations
Hardware is just the foundation; operations are the key! Giant Island offers professional event planning and community management support, using regular competitions, themed parties, influencer collaborations, and other strategies to continually attract young users and generate viral word-of-mouth promotion.
The Out-of-Control Rubik’s Cube brand is a phenomenon-level survival game brand under Giant Island. The brand regularly updates its music configuration, combining elements of sports, music, and escape room puzzles to provide participants with a fresh entertainment experience. It also features a regular points and ranking system to enhance player engagement, motivating them to continuously challenge themselves and encouraging repeat visits. The game packages are updated regularly, with backend game systems supporting periodic updates and version selection, ensuring long-term profitability in the market.
In the field of one-stop light sports and entertainment operations, Giant Island has demonstrated unique advantages and strengths. The Giant Island team is highly experienced and professionally skilled, having accumulated extensive experience in the management and operation of light sports and entertainment. This allows them to quickly integrate into new projects and provide strong support for the smooth operation of these projects.
With the subtle reshuffling of the physical entertainment landscape and the continued rise of social avenues for younger generations, the sports industry has entered a broader market, bolstered by favorable policies. As an expert in sports park solution customization, Giant Island offers clients a comprehensive one-stop service, including project planning, equipment selection, design solutions, project implementation, and follow-up training. With professional knowledge, they create customized trendy sports parks for clients. By accurately positioning the market, offering diversified entertainment projects, and creating dining experiences, Giant Island develops a differentiated model that stands out in the competitive landscape of trendy sports brands, becoming a beloved destination for many young people to check-in and enjoy.
Giant Island Sports & Entertainment Technology has been dedicated to providing full-scope solutions for light sports and entertainment spaces for ten years. We invite you to learn more about our exciting project cases!
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