Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

I recommend the book 1001 Ideas To Create Retail Excitement. Its probably in your library. You'll find a lot of ideas to create an event of your own. Tie into others events, museum events, fashion shows, baby parade, invite the local school choir or host their art show, feature local artists. Celebrate the change of season, break out of winter doldrums. Get all the shops together to create a fantasy Valentine's Day basket.

Sell Well and Prosper tm

With an open-air mall, you have the ability to do so many fun events outdoors regardless of season. From relay races to having art students create chalk designs in the streets throughout, there's a chance to attract a crowd while participants have fun or compete.

Invite retailers in the center to stage specials for the week or weekend leading up to and tie into your event for a creative, cohesive effort.

Create an event with color and/or action and with a quality shopping destination, you'll grab attention.

Depends on your anchor store. You can put in a half pipe. You can do a weekly antique car show.
Farmers market. Offer your space for free car washes for local high school fund raisers.

Michael

Events! Events! Events! Create a sense of community within your community. Make your mall known as the place in town to gather for unique events & socialize with friends while they get their errands done. Involve the community by inviting them to participate in the events. Target your events to your demographics. Is your community young? Baby Crawls are a big draw! Consider tying your event with a fund raiser for a local cause. Use the resources within your area to gather event ideas or go completely off the wall and create themed events around unusual dates (ie. national hot dog day) Besides events I would take a look at your customer service program. What (if any) does your mall offer that your competitor does not? Depending on your tenant mix, even open air mall, at the very least you can & should execute a mall loyalty program.