The Singapore Retailers Association (SRA), which represents the republic’s retail sector, today unveiled Wunderground Festival 2023 – an immersive three-year initiative that aims to transform the retail & lifestyle sector.
Artist’s impression of the upcoming Wunderground @ Emerald Hill
At the core, the goal is to rejuvenate the retail & lifestyle sector through urban and heartland festivals, and encourage experimentation and adoption of immersive and realistic elements to excite and attract consumers.
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Wunderground 2023 will be the first edition, with two more annual editions planned in the pipeline. The first year’s effort will focus on promoting cross collaboration of brands under the umbrella of “Wunderground”; the second on creating a flagship go-to event for residents; and the third relating to the creation of opportunities for overseas brands to participate under this Festival.
Mr Ernie Koh, SRA President, said that Wunderground comes at a time when transformation in the Singapore retail sector is essential for the future. “For the retail sector to climb new heights, we need to collectively re-imagine how we will operate in the future. The Wunderground initiative reflects of the key strategies to respond to the new norms and to accelerate business transformation.”
Ms Jeannie Lim, Assistant CEO (Lifestyle & Consumer) of Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG), said, “Enterprise Singapore is supportive of the Wunderground initiative by the Singapore Retailers Association. The new experiential concepts and innovations by Singapore lifestyle brands that are part of the initiative will inject more vibrancy into our retail landscape. We encourage more retailers to develop new experiences and build unique propositions that can set their brands apart.”
Catalysed by SRA’s Roadmap Vision 2025 of “Inspiring Retail Experiences”, this dynamic platform will muster collaboration among retail and lifestyle industry players.
SRA’s 2025 retail industry vision is aligned to the Retail Industry Transformation Map 2025, first announced in late 2022. Led by EnterpriseSG in partnership with key industry players, unions and other government agencies, it focuses on strengthening Singapore as a global lifestyle and retail hub, anchored with new experiential concepts and innovative products. It will centre on building a core of global Singapore brands, and uplifting the quality of job opportunities in the sector.
Touching both urban and heartland target audiences, Wunderground also aims to propel homegrown collaborations into international markets in the longer term. Similarly, it also aims to attract a new wave of local talent to the retail & lifestyle sector to support emerging experiential business models which will play a vital role in rejuvenating Singapore’s retail ecosystem.
Wunderground 2023 Highlights
Wunderground is a platform created for lifestyle brands to showcase collaborations, enable them to display fresh experiences via creative pop-up structures, and promote brands through popular social commerce personalities. In addition, organisers are working with artists, creatives, and design schools to showcase interesting visual merchandising and interactive art installations.
The key notion is that it is curated to be unlike other lifestyle festivals and aimed at creating fresh shopping experiences.
The Festival will run in two parts, with the intent of touching both the cosmopolitan as well as the heartland audiences. The “city” experience will run at 37 Emerald Hill from 21 September – 1 October 2023, while the “heartland” experience will be located at Tampines West from 6 October – 15 October 2023.
In this inaugural festival effort, there will be 25 alliances – comprising 50 enterprises – which will participate through several tiers comprising co-branded collaborations, cross promotions, limited edition collaborations, among others.