Harbour Town on the Gold Coast is Australia’s largest outlet shopping centre with over 240 stores comprising brand direct outlet and clearance stores offering a minimum of 30% off the original retail price on outlet stock, as well as specialty retailers, alfresco dining, entertainment, and services.
The open-air, palm-lined mall is also home to a dedicated Tourism Lounge offering complimentary services and facilities.
In September 2021, harbour Town reached out to Giant Inflatables to help them create an inflatable misting tunnel for their Gold Coast mall in time for the upcoming summer.
With Australian summer’s world-renowned reputation for being very hot, Harbour Town decided to invest in a unique cooling system to serve the thousands of shoppers who will brave the heat for some retail therapy.
The four-meter-long tunnel was fitted with a detachable misting system, providing a cooling passage for shoppers to walk through.
Once the inflatable is unrolled and inflated, the misting system is attached to the nearest hose, and the mist begins to spread.
As a tunnel, the semi-enclosed space keeps the mist contained within the area allowing for better cooling and away from passers-by who don’t want to get wet.
The misting tunnel was fully printed in the Harbour Town livery to ensure a strong brand identity and to convey to shoppers that harbour town is striving to make shopping as enjoyable an experience as possible, even in the summer heat.
While the inflatable frame of the tunnel is a tried and tested design with little need for change, much thought went into the branding tunnel.
During the collaborative design process, many iterations of the graphics were proposed, with the final product sporting the two primary colours of the brand and simple, highly visible branding.
During the design process, the clients also chose to remove a section of the side walls to create a more open and light-filled space, resulting in a beautiful, angled sidewall profile.
After delivery just before the summer rush, Harbour town commented on the simple useability of the design and the intense brand colours.
Feedback from harbour town shoppers was that the tunnel was a great way to cool down while shopping and was particularly popular with families.
Given the first tunnel’s success, Harbour town has requested plans for future units for their other malls.
Giant Inflatables has been producing inflatable brand activation products, sports inflatables and jumping castles since 1997.
27 Woodlands Drive,
Braeside, Melbourne
Victoria 3195
Australia
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