Leading Cambridge retail destination, Grand Arcade, has built upon an action-packed 2024 with a successful festive season, drawing in 8.5% more visitors between 28 October and 22 December than in the same period last year and with a peak of approximately 70,000 shoppers through the doors on Saturday 14 December; the most popular single day in five years. This level of visitor number growth far outpaces the national average, which averaged a 2.8% decline in footfall over the same timeframe.
The festive flurry followed a recent string of industry and community awards, acknowledging Grand Arcade’s industry-leading marketing, environmental and community achievements.
Earlier in December, the Grand Arcade team received two prestigious awards from the national trade association Revo; focusing on the centre’s groundbreaking ‘Let’s Go Circular’ campaign, and ‘Grand Discoveries’ programme. Launched in 2022, Let’s Go Circular was the UK’s first shopping centre campaign aimed at promoting the principle of the Circular Economy and has gone from strength to strength since.
With input from 60 organisations, and hosting over 80 activations, ‘Let’s Go Circular’ delivered over 800 hours of interactive content – including pop-ups focusing on re-using and re-loving vintage clothing, events discussing the need to regenerate diverse wildlife habitats, and a ‘human library’ which provided free and genuine advice to transform buildings into an eco-home. There were interactive games to learn about climate crisis and reflect on solutions, a circular fashion show in support to refugees, workshops to learn how to repair your clothes and live demonstrations to avoid food waste.
Outside of the Revo’s, ‘Let’s Go Circular’ was also awarded the industry’s Green Apple Environment Awards’ National Gold & National Champion gongs and Cambridge Independent Business Awards’ Green Award in recent weeks.
The awards were the cherry on the cake of a big year. Across the already well-occupied centre, a run of new entrants opened in 2024. B-corp certified, Rituals, one of the UK’s leading high-end beauty brands, opened its new store in May while Scamp & Dude, another B-corp certified business born in the UK, opened its fifth store in the centre in July.
Further expanding the centre’s extensive fashion line-up, Beyond Retro – the pioneering vintage and preloved clothing company – joined the Grand Arcade in October providing two floors of vintage clothing and capitalising on the City’s large student population. Then in November, Miele opened a dedicated store here, the brand’s eighth “Miele Experience Centre2 in the UK, which has become a real draw for customers.
And of course, Everyman launched its first cinema in Cambridgeshire in November too, with a blockbuster party. Labelled Britian’s ‘bougiest new cinema’, Everyman’s high-end approach to film viewing includes a selection of delectable hot and cold food, a fully stocked bar, and access to access to various membership options – alongside five screens, and 328 velvet seats. This experience, spread over more than 15,000 sq ft of the centre, continues to attract visitors from across Cambridgeshire and the East of England.
Martin Macwhinnie, centre manager for Grand Arcade, commented: “To say it’s been a big year for Grand Arcade is an understatement. The new arrivals we have welcomed and the awards we have received really acknowledge the growing role Grand Arcade has played in this community. The exchanges and interaction we have enjoyed through Let’s Go Circular and Grand Discoveries programmes have been what has really motivated us, and we have been rewarded with more visits from our shoppers and our recent record-breaking footfall – against a backdrop of reduced shopping visits nationally. Cambridge really has done us proud, and we look forward to more in 2025.”
