We have a winner: all-natural skincare scoops TREAT first prize

What do you get when you combine fifty budding entrepreneurs, five diverse concepts, two days of hard selling, one happy little egg and a sack of concrete?

The TREAT Mother’s Day Pop Up – filled with ingenious gift ideas, dedication, frustrations and pleasant surprises – produced a much-deserved winner after a challenging but rewarding weekend.

Five Escape the City Startup Tribe teams were given the challenge of creating a retail concept around the theme of #shedeservesatreat, offering delightfully different gifts for the mums in our lives. Customisable chalkboard mugs, all-natural skincare products, handmade chocolates from the north, industrial-chic concrete planters and upcycled glass bottle vases all featured in the Covent Garden concept store for one weekend only. Every team brought a unique approach to the challenge including branding, visual merchandising, marketing strategy and selling technique – here are some of the key takeaways and highlights for each:

THE WINNER:
Mother Nature

Winner

From green tea and lavender foot soak to coffee anti-cellulite scrub, Mother Nature built their brand around all-natural, handmade skincare products that looked as good as they smelled. They combined simple packaging with a rustic, welcoming visual merchandising strategy to form a cohesive and beautifully-executed brand experience for the customer.

Speaking to team leader Fizzy before the challenge, she told We Are Pop Up that “I’ve never done anything like this or anything in retail before. I don’t think anyone has in the group so we’re going to have to really hustle over the weekend to figure it all out. I’m really hoping it’s going to work and we’re not going to leave with more body butter than you’d ever need in your life…”

As the store opened on day one, we caught up with Fizzy again: “I’m exhausted. We had quite a few delivery issues so nothing arrived until about 4:30pm yesterday – all of this was made between then and now. Everyone came over to my house and we were up until 3am making products but we’ve made a couple of real sales so far which is exciting. It’s fun and it’s a chance to see what happens when you put real products out there. I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing some happy customers, selling it all, making a profit and celebrating! But even if not it’s still been a nice way to work with other people and see what we can do.”

That said, Mother Nature managed to finish as the winning team, having sold an impressive 177 items, taking £991.04 worth of sales and gaining a total social media following of 612. Congratulations also came from across the teams: “The products looked gorgeous, the sellers fit the brand and the stall was open and engaging making it easy to entice customers. All aspects of the business were consistent.” “Mother Nature skincare was my favourite (isn’t everyone saying the same thing?!) They just smashed it on all levels and seemed very cohesive as a team.” “The team members were great shopping consultants. And the product could keep up with conventional and commercially sold cosmetic products.”

The four fantastic remaining teams:

Good Egg Creations

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Good Egg Creations, a gift shop with all proceeds going to children’s charity Barnardo’s, encouraged people to buy something meaningful for their loved ones and feel “gooey inside”. Upcycled homeware, handmade candles, customised mugs and tote bags were some of the products available, with guest brand Cold & Blac offering samples of London’s first coffee liqueur. Their social media campaign was fun and interactive, posting photos and videos asking customers and people on the streets of Covent Garden, “Why is your mum a good egg?“. The team made solid sales of 87 items and managed a modest profit above the seed investment they received.

Mum’s The Bird

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Team Mum’s The Bird tapped into the current homeware trend for mini succulents and cacti and backed up the products with simple but effective branding. A life-size polaroid frame also added a fun, innovative angle to their social media campaign. Having never made concrete planters before, the team told us that “they were far from perfect, but we sold through almost every single one and were even asked to do another pop up in East London, which two of us have already started working on.” Total sales at the end of the weekend surpassed the £200 seed investment with sales including 15 potted plants, and a social following of 513.

Make Her Day

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“On a mission to end generic Mother’s Day gifts,” Make Her Day produced a selection of handmade, customisable products so customers could add their own twist on the day. Chalkboard mugs and carafes, tote bags and even the paper cranes that decorated the stall proved a winner for the team. Clever use of origami also resulted in one of the most innovative logos of the challenge, with social media encouraging customers to write down how they would #MakeHerDay. The team sold a solid 93 items including 30 chalkboard mugsTheir social following totalled at 460, including the only email obtained by any team.

From London With Love

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From London With Love centred their brand on handmade, artisan goods from British entrepreneurs, including Good & Proper Tea, NIX & KIX cayenne chilli drinks and handmade Guppy’s Chocolates from York. Members of the team dedicated time to attracting passing trade despite the cold, creating their own signage and actively engaging the public with their chalkboard message campaign. Learning from their experience on day one, on Sunday the team completely rearranged their table to create a minimal, cohesive and ultimately more effective visual merchandising display. Total sales more than doubled their seed investment, with the highest volume of product sold including 46 packets of chocolate. 

 

Escape the City is on a mission to help talented professionals escape unfulfilling jobs and forge exciting, unconventional career paths. Follow them on Twitter and Facebook.

If you’ve been inspired and would like to try your hand at your own pop up then browse and book spaces all online at wearepopup.com.

We Are Pop Up website

The Weekly Round-Up

Treat her

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The TREAT Pop Up for Mother’s Day will showcase a collective of ideas and products from the Escape the City Startup Tribe, all wrapped up in a unique concept store in the heart of Covent Garden. Read more here and stay updated on Twitter with #shedeservesatreat.

Listen

The Wintergartan Marble Machine is a mind-blowing hand-made music box that powers a kick drum, bass, vibraphone and other instruments using a hand crank and 2,000 marbles. Marvel at the music with some good headphones. (WIRED)

Create

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Pantone has launched 112 new colours for graphic design, collaborating with designers including Sagmeister & Walsh partner Jessica Walsh, Pentagram partner Eddie Opara and book cover designer Chip Kidd. (It’s Nice That)

Watch

An exclusive look at the making of the mesmerising video for Black Lake with the combined genius of Björk, Andrew Thomas Huang and Autodesk. (The Creators Project)

Read

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The founder of movie streaming service MUBI, Efe Cakarel, on data-driven selection and the abundance of choice. (Freunde von Freunden)

 

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TREAT your Mama: the Mother’s Day Pop Up Challenge

50 entrepreneurs.
5 start-ups.
2 days.
1 winner.

This weekend 5th – 6th March will see the return of We Are Pop Up and Escape the City to 44 Shelton Street in Covent Garden. With a new Startup Tribe line-up, five teams have been set the challenge of creating a lifestyle brand to launch in TREAT, a concept store for Mother’s Day weekend located in the heart of one of London’s top shopping districts.

Escape the City is on a mission to help talented professionals escape unfulfilling jobs and forge exciting, unconventional career paths. As one element of the Startup Tribe’s ‘intensive introduction to entrepreneurship’, the Pop Up Challenge sets this group of innovators the task to get creative, bring their ideas to life and launch a start-up from scratch. TREAT will showcase a collective of their products for two days only, all wrapped up in a unique concept store dedicated to all the Mothers out there because, of course, #shedeservesatreat.

To add a dose of healthy competition, once again the challenge will result in a winning team: the one that not only makes the most profit, but also gains the biggest social media following and creates the most impressive overall branding. For that we welcome back in-house pop-up and visual merchandising expert, Daniel Peters of BBS Clothing.

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The clock is ticking until the doors open at 11am on Saturday and concepts so far include handcrafted skincare goodies inspired by Mother Nature herself, and a curated selection of customisable products designed to eliminate ‘generic gifts’. Our friends at Bloomon will also be joining the teams in-store to showcase their fresh flower delivery service and light up the space with their utterly original bouquets.

Keep an eye on Twitter with #shedeservesatreat for the latest updates and to see how the challenge unfolds. Head over to the TREAT Pop Up website for more.

 

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The Weekly Round-Up

Go

New invite

In 2014, artist and illustrator Jane Moore drew a sketch a day for the year. Inspired by this, poet Kirstin Maguire (sister of our very own COO Clara) interpreted ‘sketch’ in poetry and wrote a piece a day for 2015. The awesome book brings together a selection of their works – head down to We Are Facility on 25th February 6-9pm for an evening of readings.

Listen

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Pick a country, pick a decade between the 1900s and today and let yourself get carried away by the most beautiful musical library the world has to offer. Radiooooo started as an Indiegogo project and is now filled with tracks discovered by users from all over the world. Explore for yourself or check out this list from The Fader of their favourite finds.

Read

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This article from Creative Review – Turner Prize-winning collective Assemble on Granby Four Streets, empowering communities and transforming public spaces. “We’re interested in different ways you can engage with a city … for us, the best to do this is through direct action and experimentation.”

Draw

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Instead of life models, the subjects in Wild Life Drawing classes include chameleons, dogs, bats, donkeys, tortoises and micro pigs (sadly that last one has sold out). The drawing classes are open to all, from beginner to advanced, and aim to inspire appreciation and understanding of animals and conservation issues. Read Founder Jennie Webber’s interview with Grafik.

 

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Yelp and Not Another Salon Present: Not Another Hair Event

We Are Pop Up has teamed up with our friends at Yelp and Not Another Salon as part of Yelp’s events series for its super-users, the Yelp Elite, held at some of the hottest spots in London. Not Another Hair Event  on Thursday 18th February is the ultimate creative salon evening featuring food, drink, personalised hair colour, nail design and arts and crafts in a secret psychedelic 70s-style room. Featured brands will include Pirate’s Grog Rum, Bubbleology and Chipotle and although the event is full, we’ve got tickets for two lucky winners – all you have to do is retweet us here by 5pm Wednesday 17th and we’ll announce the results. Alternatively you can still put your name down on the waitlist in case a space opens up.

We Are Pop Up spoke to Community Director of Yelp in London Alex Shebar before the event to get the lowdown on what’s in store for lucky Yelp users.

hair event


Hi Alex, tell us about Yelp and why you’re doing Not Another Hair Event. 

Yelp is a city guide that helps you live like a local, no matter if you’re new to the area or if you’ve been in your city your entire life. You can find amazing restaurants, bars, stores, even things like cinemas, theatre, sports, doctors, parks and more. It’s unlike any other site out there because it’s focused on the people who live, work and play in the city they live in. We’re running the Not Another Hair Event to show all these things off. It’s at Not Another Salon, which this amazing, bright, colourful salon in Brick Lane that’s worth checking out, and then filling the party with great local businesses like espresso martinis and bubble tea and burritos and wine and so much more. If you’ve never been to a Yelp event before, come! And if you don’t have the app yet, download it here now. It will make your day-to-day life so much more fun.

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Why did you choose to work with Not Another Salon and We Are Pop Up for this event? 

Not Another Salon is this amazing salon that really, truly, isn’t like any other salon, from both the decor to the staff. It’s one of these spots you really have to see to feel how cool and different they are, and we wanted to promote that. And then working with We Are Pop Up was a no-brainer. They have some of the best pop-ups happening in London and some really amazing local businesses. We wanted to show them off too, and absolutely have them at our party!

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What are you most looking forward to about the evening? What can we expect?

The whole event is going to be a good time, from the food, to the drinks, to the salon activities to just the people. If you’ve never been to a Yelp event before, you’ve never met a friendlier bunch of local Londoners. You’ll come, try new things, see a fantastic space, learn about local spots and meet new people. What’s not to love?

Check out the Yelp London events page for gigs, talks, tea, classes and more.

 

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The Weekly Round-Up

Relax

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This February 14th, relax, reconnect and free your Shakti energy – Secret Yoga Club presents Wild Woman Valentines Day at the Town Hall Hotel in Bethnal Green.

Watch

VW and i-D follow DJ, producer and NTS radio presenter Nabihah Iqbal, aka Throwing Shade, as she explores the opportunities and burgeoning cultural scenes of Lisbon and Leipzig. Watch it online on i-D.

Spend

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A We Are Pop Up favourite, technicolour knitwear designer Katie Jones is one of Selfridges’ Bright New Things, a collection of emerging London labels making a difference with their work. Shop the exclusive collection in-store or online.

Cook

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This beautiful interactive recipe collection designed by Elespacio takes you around the world in 12 dishes – a feast for your eyes as well as your tastebuds.

Listen

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A new monthly vinyl mix series, ‘Home Listening’ is created by a group of friends who spend all their money on vinyl.

 

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The Weekly Round-Up

From chocolate to chickpeas, here’s the Round-Up of what’s been on our minds at We Are Pop Up HQ this week.

Visit

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The egg that divided the office. Online tickets sold out in one hour, but check out the Crème de la Creme Egg Cafe Facebook event for details and see what’s on the menu [insert egg pun here].

Learn


From Instagram profiles to Etsy shops and high street storefronts, modern calligraphy and decorative lettering have taken the creative world by storm. East London studio Lamplighter London organise workshops for beginners – where do we sign up?

Buy

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One of our Pop Up Predictions for 2016 was that the high street will become a hotbed of inter-brand mashups and remixes. Over 224 pages, Art + Fashion: The Ultimate Collaborations explores what happens when the two collide. The author, fashion historian E.P. Cutler, tells AnOther her five favourites from the book.

Read

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Get inspired to do what you love. Grace & Thorn founder Nik Southern talks to The Lifestyle Edit about moving from a hated job in IT recruitment to running one of London’s coolest florists. (And check out her new monthly column as The Agony Plant for AnOther.)

Cook

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With half of London coughing and sneezing their way through January and the other half powering on with their alcohol-free and diet-rich resolutions, HQ has been exchanging healthy recipes in the office. This chickpea and pumpkin curry from The Detox Kitchen hits the nail on the head.

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The Weekly Round-Up

Real-life heroes and short film showings,  badass coffee drinkers and enormous elephants. Here’s our Friday Round-Up for the second week of January.

Listen

Watch

Round-Up

Cat videos, filmmaker retrospectives and award-winning dramas at the London Short Film Festival. You’ve got until 17th January to catch the cutting-edge collection of some of the freshest newcomers in the industry, as well as panel discussions and events during the UK’s leading platform for short films. See the full event schedule here.

Laugh

Round-Up

The only way to drink coffee.

Visit

Round-Up

30 dazzling light installations over 4 days. Lumiere London will illuminate the city from 14th to 17th January, including a floating goldfish above Piccadilly, neon dogs near Trafalgar Square and an enormous projected elephant stomping down Regent Street. Don’t miss a thing.

Read

Round-Up

The New York Times’ 52 Places to Go in 2016. Biting wind and intermittent, miserable rain have got us yearning for climes less grey – this multimedia travel feature covers everything from temple mini-cities in Tamil Nadu to the stunningly scenic Road of the Seven Lakes. Your 2016 wanderlust list starts here.

Create

Round-Up

Anything you like. The New York Public Library has announced the release of more than 180,000 digitisations of public domain works, all available in high resolution downloads and totally free from usage restrictions. You can search through the awe-inspiring collection of items by genre, time period, colour… Discover everything from ancient illustrations to bizarre photographs in one huge database and reuse, reshape and remix them as you wish.

 

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Pop Up Predictions for 2016

Our list of the trends, technologies and creative movements we believe will impact the sector in the coming year.

From a new definition of luxury, to the end of web search as we know it, 2016 is the year the high street truly becomes plug-and-play like the app store, and creative retail reaches new heights. In this short focus, the team at We Are Pop Up and some special guests pioneering future retail outline the ideas that excite them when looking to the year ahead. The predictions we’ve identified are issues which we expect to affect cities globally and which creative retailers can use to their advantage. We hope you enjoy reading them.

Nicholas Russell

Nick

In 2016, the sector reach will be unprecedented

A number of new industries will see that they can use pop ups to reach consumers – from tech, to energy, to government. People will see the power of renting spaces by the day or week, rather than multiple years and a new wave of retail space usage will emerge, from marketing to public health to politics and everything in between.

Nick is the Founder and CEO of We Are Pop Up. Prior to starting the company, he introduced Louis Vuitton to graffiti and hip hop, and helped Unilever dominate an FMCG category within 18 months.

Clara Maguire

Sub-lets become master

As demand increases for fractional use of space, the trend of sharing and subletting space will accelerate. This will challenge traditional leasing structures, and they’ll become shorter, multi-party, and will enable subletting. Master Lease holders looking to maximise value from this new pattern of demand will propel it by creating new leasing structures.

Clara is the COO at We Are Pop Up and is interested in how cities and technology scale entrepreneurship to deliver a more resilient, inclusive economy.

Abigail Freeman

Bloomon

In 2016 luxury will be redefined.

Luxury as we know it will become available to all in a way previously reserved for the ultra-wealthy. From personal fashion-stylists through digital services like Thread.com to Michelin-starred meals on demand via Deliveroo, or flowers by subscription by Bloomon, the range of luxury services and items available to the masses will be unprecedented. And so a new breed of luxury will emerge, redefined to remain a true “luxury” through beautiful, seamless online and offline services and highly exclusive, ephemeral experiences.

Abi is the Director of Marketing and Partnerships at We Are Pop Up and has worked shaping policy that helps creative businesses start up and grow.

Daniel Peters

Menswear comes into its own

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I’m super passionate about fashion as it is, but I think menswear is evolving and turning into its own beast. Emerging designers will coexist alongside established designers in retail spaces. In my own pop ups I try and give new designers a platform and pair them alongside both new and established brands such as Aquascutum or a brand like Lou Dalton who do runway shows, and these brand remixes will become commonplace. Everyone needs to be mixed together in that way.

Daniel is the Founder and Creative Director of BBS Clothing. His latest pop up was a creative collaboration between his own label and Clarks Shoes.

Bertie Herrtage

Crowd

Retail communities will overlap

Dominant retailers on the high street will begin to diversify the use of their space to attract more customers and increase dwell time.
Space on the high street is an expensive asset to keep. With more people doing their shopping online, retailers will expand their offering to reinstate themselves as an experience destination.
In-store partnerships will form between different areas of commerce which share the same customer e.g. clothing shops, cafés and bars who can operate from the same site such as the Heals x Forge & Co workspace collaboration in London.
These retailers are re-imagining the use of their space, where outside the hours of their conventional trading may be an opportunity to host something different, i.e. a gallery, event or workshop.

Bertie heads up Space Acquisition at We Are Pop Up.

Lulu Krause

Lulu

2016 will be about B2We.

Lone brands will form robust collectives and self-curate their retail presence. Power lies in numbers, and as pop ups continue to take the place of traditional retail models, likeminded brands will join forces. Through product innovations like Brand to Brand messaging on We Are Pop Up, designers, artists and retailers will be empowered to strategically co-produce and create cohesive in-store narratives. Through these new collaboration tools, a pop up will be more than a store — it will tell an entire story.

Lulu is the Director of Partnerships for We Are Pop Up NYC.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang & Julija Bainiaksina, Founders of The Dandy Lab

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In 2016 tech enabled retail will see the introduction of smart shopping environments across the high street.

Stores will be able to provide the ultimate consumer experience by learning about the individual in real-time, resulting in superior customer service and personalised shopping journeys. By deploying RFID enabled loyalty cards, The Dandy Lab was able to convert 20% of new customers into brand loyal, returning patrons (The Dandy Lab, 2016).

Greg Spielberg

2016 will be the first year that every brand, artist or organisation who wants space can get space.

The topography of our cities are fundamentally different. We’ve moved from closed urban space, available only though five and ten year leases, to open spaces. The shift is as big and beneficial as the movement from the printing press to the blog. Our cities will start to truly reflect the visions, expressions and businesses of its communities rather than just big-budget, corporate stores.

Greg is Managing Director of We Are Pop Up NYC and founder of Imagination in Space, working at the intersection of retail and journalism.

Anna Trotter

2016 will be the year of brand mash-ups and remixes.

Creative businesses, from independent designer-makers to world-famous fashion houses, will pioneer new ways of combining their offers to bring unique inter-brand mash-ups to the high street. No longer just the remit of retail giants like H&M and their hysteria-inducing designer collaborations, projects of all shapes and sizes will join forces to create new retail offerings. We Are Pop Up’s brand to brand messaging tool will sit at the heart of this movement, with infinite possibility. From denim and doughnuts to tea and tech, the future of the hight street will be remixed.

Anna is the Community Manager for We Are Pop Up.

Alastair Moore

Alastair

Search gets smarter.

2016 will see a breakthrough in search and discovery. Platforms will use intelligent search to predict and even pre-empt users’ needs. Search as we know it will decline to be replaced by personalised recommendations and smart curation.

Alastair is Chairman of We Are Pop Up, a UCL PhD computer scientist with 10 years experience in mobile, web and early stage tech innovation, and believes cities will be plug-and-play like app stores.

Daniel O’Connor

Tech

Things get personal.

Retailers will focus on creating a connected retail experience based around the individual shopper. Retail brands will blend online & offline in ways not previously possible to create a seamless and unified shopping experience. In 2016, large retailers will test more and more emerging technologies with the aim of simplifying the shopping experience for consumers whilst enhancing the retailer’s access to offline data. Technology like Cloudtags will become mainstream, and shoppers will embrace beautiful, delightful tech whilst dismissing anything clunky or unintuitive.

Daniel is the Account Manager at We Are Pop Up and speaks to hundreds of creative retailers weekly.

What did we miss? Tell us your 2016 pop-up prediction by tweeting us at @wearepopup using #popuppredict or click here to Tweet.

 

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Business without walls: We Are Pop Up speaks to James Woodward

At the beginning of October, founder of Brighton’s No Walls Gallery James Woodward listed his space on We Are Pop Up as the newly branded 114 Church Street. Within 24 hours he closed a £1,500 partnership with vintage label House of Bricks. Within one week, London entrepreneurs sent him another 182 qualified leads and the space was fully booked through to the new year. Like his gallery, a business approach of no walls and no agents means that independent brands can launch in this environment of genuinely democratic retail.

Woodward is a prime example of how creative entrepreneurs are using We Are Pop Up to grow their businesses on their own terms. We Are Pop Up spoke to James about No Walls and 114 Church Street, his personal experience with pop-ups and how he has grown his gallery into somewhere that not only encourages innovation but also demonstrates exactly how people are using digital tools in new ways to do business.

No Walls

Hi James. First of all, tell me a bit about yourself. How do you find yourself where you are today?

I’m probably best known as the founder and owner of No Walls, an independent gallery I started in 2008.  I also own the Chapel Townhouse, a unique one bedroom luxury hotel next to the 114 Church Street space that we’re launching properly in the new year. I live in Brighton with my wife Lorina and five small children – Luella, Amelie, Charles and our baby twins Arthur and Elodie. We moved down here from London six years ago.

I understand No Walls started as a pop-up gallery in London. How did it develop from a temporary site into the gallery as it is now?

No Walls started as a pop-up gallery with Ben Frost‘s first UK solo show in 2008, before anyone was really using the term “pop-up”. I’d met Ben in Sydney a few years prior and somehow convinced him into his first show outside of Australia. I rented an amazing space in the Old Truman Brewery for a week and that was the start of it all. At the time I launched No Walls, I was working for Sony Music and had planned on moving away from that and throwing myself into No Walls full-time, but it wasn’t until we moved down to Brighton that I had the opportunity to do it. Brighton is an amazing, creative city but there were no galleries showing the kind of work I was into so, towards the end of 2010, I took the plunge and threw everything into opening a permanent gallery. After a couple of years, the opportunity arose to purchase 114 Church Street, an iconic 19th century building directly opposite Brighton Dome and having always loved the building, I jumped at it. 114 Church Street has been No Walls’ home ever since.

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Do you have any other personal experience with pop-ups? What was your most memorable experience?

Like I say, at the time of that first pop-up show with Ben Frost, I was working for Sony and I hadn’t told anyone there what I was doing. I kind of knew running a start up business alongside working full-time wouldn’t go down well but I felt as though I had to do it to get No Walls off the ground. When Ben’s show was on, I took two weeks holiday and planned to keep it all quiet. This was all good until people from Sony kept coming in to see the show and I then spent half the weekend either hiding under the desk or sneaking outside.

Prior to these most recent pop-ups, the closest thing we’ve done to a pop-up in the 114 Church Street space was Lucy Sparrow’s corner shop. Particularly memorable because it was so different to anything else I’d seen or done in the gallery. Lucy had recreated the entire contents of a traditional British corner shop out of felt, some 4,000 items in total, and we transformed 114 Church Street into her corner shop in October last year. For the whole month, we had customers walking in oblivious to the fact it was all made of felt, asking for cigarettes, Rizla’s, lottery tickets, you name it. One night, we were about to go live from the gallery on BBC One, with a cameraman and presenter stood in the gallery ready to go live, and someone strolled in, straight past both of them, completely oblivious to both the fact they had a TV crew stood next to them and the fact that everything was made of felt, and asked me for two Euromillions tickets.

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Why did you decide to make the No Walls space available to pop-ups?

The decision came after we moved the exhibition after Hattie Stewart‘s recent show and were left with a hole in our schedule. 114 Church Street is such a beautiful, iconic building and the location in the centre of Brighton, halfway between the station and the pier and moments from the famous North Laine and the lanes, means it’s perfectly located for all kinds of pop-up uses. Being directly opposite the Dome and Corn Exchange also means that everyone in Brighton knows the building and I’m constantly approached about renting the space out, so I already knew there was demand for it. Rather than putting a show together at short notice, I decided to finally test the water and see which pop-ups would like to use the space. Before I knew it, enquiries and bookings were rolling in. On a personal level, I wanted to spend more time with the twins and letting pop-ups use the space should allow me to do this.

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What benefits are there inviting other businesses to use your space?

The variety of pop-ups using the space and the promotion they put into their time in the space will undoubtedly make more people aware of both the space and the gallery. By opening the space up to pop-ups, the space will soon become a real hub for creativity and entrepreneurship in Brighton and we’ll find people returning more and more frequently to see what’s on, whether it’s No Walls or a pop-up in there. Creatively, meeting and seeing other creative businesses at work is bound to throw up new opportunities and ideas.

Getting involved with We Are Pop Up has already influenced my thinking about how No Walls will operate going forwards and we’ve already been making changes.

No Walls

What was the thinking behind creating a new brand for 114 Church Street rather than simply marketing No Walls as a space for hire?

Once I decided to make the space available for pop-ups, I always thought it was important for the space to have an identity in it’s own right. This allows us to open the space up to the whole pop-up market without No Walls having to approve, or be seen to endorse, the pop-ups that use the space. Separating the space from No Walls will also give the gallery the freedom to operate wherever we like. We’ll be able to focus our efforts online and start thinking about pop-ups and projects of our own away from Brighton, whether that be elsewhere in the UK or overseas.

What made you use We Are Pop Up over a traditional agent? What does it allow you to do as a space owner?

To be honest, I didn’t even consider using a traditional agency. I saw the spaces on We Are Pop Up and knew 114 Church Street would both compliment and offer something different to the properties you already had and it was a no brainer. I also wanted the flexibility of being able to use 114 Church Street for No Walls, alongside being able to make it available to pop-ups and We Are Pop Up offered me this. The experience so far has been great and I’m in no doubt that I made the right choice.

Tell me more about how you and other creatives around you are heading online and using digital tools to grow their businesses?

Digital has always played a huge part in the gallery side of our business, whether it’s customers ordering artwork online or simply discovering the gallery on social media. In terms of the pop-up side of the business and 114 Church Street, it’s great that we can connect with so many great brands so easily via the We Are Pop Up platform. Some of the brands who have booked the space knew 114 Church Street and the gallery already, but others have connected with us having discovered the space on We Are Pop Up.

We Are Pop Up simplifies the process of renting short term space for both sides and helps brands to see their ideas come to life quicker than they ever could have done before.
So simple that a space can be viewed online and contracts agreed within minutes. In simplifying what was previously a long winded and complicated process, the We Are Pop Up platform is a valuable digital tool for us.

 

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