Simeon Aldred, group creative director at Vibration Group, discusses the emerging trend of ‘place-making’.

Over the last 20 years there have been a number of new words and trends to hit the events industry. Trends like street food, experiential, and immersive performance.

As ever, there are companies that lead the charge and become experts, and those that are late to the table. So what’s the latest trend that’s washing across our industry? Its ’place making’.

Across venues, shopping centres, tourist destinations, and the public realm, we are going to see the market talking about ‘place making’. It’s a term that’s been around for years in town planning and architecture, often only used in the context of the physicals of a site or space; the buildings, parks, seating, landscaping and so on.

But the term is now opening up to how a space makes you feel, how it behaves, who it attracts, and what impact that might have on society and the commerciality of a place.

For the last 20 years, I have worked on a number of place making strategies for Liverpool ONE, Westfield London, and Printworks, and we have recently been appointed to lead on the place making strategies for both Silvertown, and Meridian Waters in Enfield.

As the trend expands across our industry and agencies evolve from experiential marketers to place makers, we need to ensure we keep the definitions and language of our trade clear.

Experiential marketing, immersive performance, destination marketing, and place making are defined tools of our trade. The advice we give our clients should be true to those tools and their definitions. To our peers we say: be specialists. Be experts. Your agency will grow as the trends influence this vibrant industry of ours.