This festive season, families wanting to immerse themselves in some Christmas magic should look no further than Covent Garden. While parents do their Christmas shopping around London’s most beautiful Christmas shopping district adorned with 45 sparkling mistletoe garlands, children have the chance to step into an alternate festive land, meet Santa and join his LEGO production line, digitally enhanced by augmented reality and visual discovery app Blippar.
Meet Santa
Visitors can meet Santa in an interactive rooftop experience before embarking on an enchanted journey through the district to help Santa find his missing reindeer. Powered by the Blippar app, the experience and quest for reindeer unlock digitally enhanced magical experiences along the way, with a chance of offers and daily prizes to be won.
Located at 3, The Market Building, Covent Garden (London, WC2E 8RA), visitors can book a place free of charge with one of Santa’s helpers from now through to 24th December 2016.Visitors can also book their place in advance on blippar.com/coventgarden.
Santa’s Workshop
The annual LEGO® Christmas build has arrived in Covent Garden’s Piazza for the festive season. Made with over 700,000 LEGO bricks, visitors are invited to join the elves on the ‘production line’ of Santa’s Workshop and decorate their own LEGO selfie. The Blippar app can also be used to bring Santa’s Sleigh to life in front of your eyes with different LEGO experiences to discover.
Santa’s Workshop is on the Piazza until 29th December 2016.
Future of Retail
In between admiring the city’s biggest hand-picked Christmas tree and the magnificent mistletoe light scheme, shoppers in Covent Garden this festive season can experience the shopping spree of the future. Over 140 participating stores and restaurants across the district have created digitally enriched shopping experiences in partnership with Blippar, including beauty and fashion gift guides curated by style editors from Cosmopolitan, Elle and Esquire,entirely bespoke to Covent Garden.
AR applications enriching the Covent Garden experience this Christmas include:
· Swing tags on select items in-store unlocking ‘gift picks’, rewards and offers from top fashion editors
· “Blippable" stickers on restaurant fronts enabling people to explore different menu items, online reviews and even book a table
· An interactive AR map of Covent Garden which will come alive with events happening during the festive season, and unlock seasonal offers
· A digitally enhanced Christmas tree and an AR Grotto, showcasing the magic of the technology
· A digital treasure hunt, where people can collect eight reindeer to enter a daily draw and win cash prizes
