Tag Archives: Christmas

News

Winter Wonderland Fiasco

by Katrina Goldsmith

Edinburgh’s winter wonderland has been a must-see attraction for the city that will get anyone, even Christmas humbugs in the festive spirit.

It looked like this popular Christmas market may be taking a break this year with its lead investor, Angels Event Experience Ltd pulling out from the contract after it was due Edinburgh council £5.5 million to host Edinburgh’s Christmas festivities for the next 5 years.

Luckily for the wonderland admirers, the Edinburgh Christmas market will be going on this year with the group, Unique Assembly – formally known as Underbelly – producing this year’s festival. Unique Assembly is the company behind the production of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations in 2021.

This is a contract lasting for one year, a one-year extension has been offered to provide that pre-agreed performance terms and measures have been achieved.

This news will come as a relief to the local businesses and 70 stallholders who have already secured their spots for the Christmas market this year, allowing them to continue planning their stock and trade for the busy Christmas period.

This market this year will feature the return of favourite festive attractions such as the funfair, the big wheel, and the Christmas market in East and West Princes Street Gardens as well as on the Mound. There will be a return of the Christmas Ice Rink which was introduced for the first time on George Square last year.

The Christmas Wonderland will see attractions for families to enjoy with the return of “Santa Land” where children can visit Santa’s Grotto, explore the Christmas tree maze, and enjoy munching on festive foods and drinks.

Council leader, Cammy Day, stated in The Herald: “There’s no questioning the popularity of our Winter Festivals or the benefits they bring to the Capital – the enjoyment and wellbeing of our residents, but also the economic impact for our businesses and the city as a whole”.

“Crucially, the new plans will deliver on the key elements of our public consultation, including reduced use of green spaces, more accessible and family-friendly attractions, greater use of local traders and a more even spread around the city centre”.

“I have no doubt Unique Assembly will help us make it yet another great festive period for our Capital city.”

News

Harvey Ni-Claus is Coming to Town

By Cameron Noble

Premier UK luxury fashion retailer, Harvey Nichols, has revealed their mesmerising Christmas windows for their Edinburgh branch, and this year, they’ve gone full out.

For 2022, Harvey Nichols’ Display Team have devised an opulent display full of glitz and glamour, inspired by one of the key catwalk trends of the season, ‘Studio 54.’ Consisting of reflective angular mirrors, disco balls and an uncountable amount of sequins, the display reflects and throws lights onto the street to enchant passing customers.

Janet Wardley, Head of Visual Display at Harvey Nichols, said: “This year, we went all out with sparkles, mirrors and metallics, to create something truly mesmerising and eye-catching, that excites our customers as they shop this Christmas. We filled our windows with angular mirrored screens and oversized sparkling stars, and the most wonderful gifting ideas to help our customers get into the gifting spirit.”

Treating their window displays as a promotional stunt to showcase the variety of fashion, beauty, accessories and food products they hold within the store, Edinburgh’s Harvey Nichols store presents mannequins which are elegantly adorned with autumn/winter 2022 attire from international luxury brands such as Alexander McQueen, Saint Laurent and Gucci, as well as displaying their own-branded luxury hampers and small gifts to cater to the mass market and inspire Christmas wish lists.

Behind the scenes of Harvey Nichols’ bedazzling windows, every store also has its own Visual Display Team who liaises with the Head Office’s visual management to ensure brand consistency. There is also an extensive creative process to materialise ideas into physical displays.

Mood boards are created to spark ideas by scanning magazines, watching fashion shows and sifting through old photographs. These ideas are sketched, followed by 3D drawings of the drafted window displays before they are sent off to Alperton, London, where parts are manufactured and sent to stores for on-site construction. The entire process can start as early as April, taking several months before the final idea is approved and realised, all in good time for the festive period.

Management within the Edinburgh branch has shared their praise and admiration for their Visual Display Team.

“Our Display Team are absolutely incredible at bringing our displays to life,” A Menswear Supervisor for the Edinburgh store said, “This year, they’ve done such an excellent job with the glitz and glam that Harvey Nichols was aiming to achieve.”

Especially in the dark, the windows’ beauty is amplified, helping the store to stand out from its competing neighbours such as Louis Vuitton and Burberry in Edinburgh’s luxurious high street – Multrees Walk. It also brings a pop of colour to St. Andrews Square, serving as a beautiful backdrop while also attempting to evoke curiosity within passing shoppers to take a closer look.

Harvey Nichols doesn’t shy away from dramatic displays that play with colour and creative concepts to captivate its customers. For 2021, Harvey Nichols decided to characterise each window with its own colour to symbolise positive emotions such as joy, happiness, excitement and calmness, all of which embrace the Christmas spirit. Their reputation for their ostentatious window displays over the years places them in a position where customers can expect a next-level display that reinforces the Christmas perspective in a fun and daring way for 2023.

News, Opinion

Spotify Wrapped 2022: Why now is the only time we are all happily sharing our data

By Julie Dvorakova

It is that time of the year again. Whilst many are looking ahead to Christmas, Spotify users keep refreshing the green-black app, waiting for the annual early Christmas gift – their Spotify Wrapped.

Spotify Wrapped is an extremely popular feature that creatively summarizes all the data  Spotify, an audio streaming platform, has collected about each one of its users over the year.

That means after ‘unwrapping’ this thoughtful digital present, you can explore your most listened songs, and artists or realize the (let’s be honest, shocking) amount of time you’ve spent listening to music and podcasts.

The truth is this data is also so nicely presented that many can’t help it and share the visual analysation of their listening habits with their friends, colleagues, friends’ pets, and simply everyone who follows them on Instagram or Twitter.

Spotify has, according to the newest statistics, 456 million monthly active users worldwide, which makes it the most used streaming service. It is the go-to app for listening to music, podcasts, guided meditations, or audiobooks. Yet for many users, the reason that made them switch from other streaming services to Spotify, or even start using audio streaming service for the very first time is just the irresistible Spotify Wrapped.

It is like seeing all your friends sharing their favourite memories from a trip you did not go on. Suddenly, all you want to know is how many minutes you have spent with your headphones on, instead of interacting with people. You want to know what is your most played song of the year, or what would be the soundtrack to your movie.

All you need to do to get this life-changing information about yourself is to subscribe to Spotify and wait till the beginning of December. Sharing the visualized data and becoming a part of the global, social media-based discussion is then fairly easy. And Spotify is very well aware of this.

The concept of Spotify Wrapped began in 2013, seven years after this go-to music streaming service was developed in Sweden. If you are looking back at the pre-pandemic years and can’t think of any Spotify Wrapped, well done for confirming the statistics. Spotify’s early Christmas gift which is as aesthetically pleasing as we know it today, came out as a ground-breaking concept in 2020, with over 1,2 million mentions on Twitter.

In 2020, 62% of people in the UK said they use Spotify at least once a week. Globally, Spotify is getting more and more users every year, and it does not seem to change. In fact, it is safe to say in the upcoming hours and days we are about to see Spotify everywhere on social media, whether that’s Instagram stories, Twitter, Tik Tok or memes. Spotify Wrapped is about to become the go-to small talk topic, enjoying its once-a-year moment of fame.