Ballymena Council will be switching on its Christmas lights tonight (with no doubt many more towns etc to follow suit). This news has helped bring out my inner scrooge. What is the point of spending money on Christmas lights? Is there any evidence that they have an identifiable impact upon shopping behaviour? I find it hard to believe there is. The electric light bulb is a technology that we managed to crack many many decades ago, does seeing them in different colours and predictable designs really manage to differentiate one shopping town from another?
1 comment:
Spending money of Christmas decorations for town centres is a left over from an earlier age when many town councils, especially the like of Belfast and Lisburn, where crammed full of the merchant/business class who had an interest in tarting their area up to try and draw people in to it. Its one of those things that people simply expect as a matter of routine. The Belfast tree switch on certainly pays for itself, with something like 20,000 people coming to the event and spending money in the city centre. Leave the lights up and close a few leisure centres, that's what I think!
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