Where to Pop-Up: A Spatial Analysis of Pop-Up Shops in Toronto, 2017
Gilbert Law
Abstract:
The research project explores the questions of where
and why pop-up shops choose to be located where they
are. The data gathered is focused on fashion and food
pop-up shops in Toronto in 2017 and is collected from
blogTO’s database of events. The purpose of the
research is to examine the spatial relations between
pop-up shops to understand what factors are important
in the selection of locations for pop-up shops. The
findings of this research is supportive of the three
hypotheses made by Patterson and Silver (2015) - rising
tide, perfect audience, and urbanism - and Harris’
arguments for the importance of flexibility and
interstitiality of pop-up shops (2015). The conclusion of
this research brief is that additional research is
necessary in the understanding of the spatial factors for
where and why pop-up shops are located, as there are
limitations in the data gathered and the type of pop-up
shops presented in this research.
Key words: Pop-Up, Toronto, Spatial Analysis,
Fashion, Food
Introduction
Pop-up shops are locales, such as an established store or
a rented space, that allow businesses to temporarily open
to sell their products or service. Pop-up shops range
from stores that sell fashion, food, and artisan goods to
services such as social meetings, markets, and massages.
Because of the temporality of pop-up shops, there are
questions of generally where and why businesses choose
a location over another, and those are the questions of
particular interest. Where are pop-up shops being hosted
and why are these locations chosen?
Background
This qualitative research focuses on fashion and food
pop-up shops in Toronto in 2017 to examine the
qualities for where pop-up shops tend to be located. The
importance of addressing this question of spatiality is to
better understand the factors that attract pop-up shops.
Culture, Creativity, and Cities Capstone Course | Dept. of Sociology | University of Toronto – Scarborough
1265 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A4 Canada
There are two articles that can aid in explaining where
pop-up shops tend to be located and why these locations
are chosen: Patterson and Silver’s work “The place of
art: Local area characteristics and arts growth in Canada,
2001-2011” and Harris’ “Navigating Pop-up
Geographies: Urban Space-Times of Flexibility,
Interstitiality and Immersion.”
From Patterson and Silver’s work (2015), there are three
hypotheses they note for arts growth that potentially can
be connected to the spatiality of pop-up shops: 1) Rising
tide - arts growth likely occurs in areas growing
economically; 2) Perfect audience - arts growth likely
occurs in areas with a demographic that consumes art; 3)
Urbanism - arts growth likely occurs in urbanized areas.
From Harris’ work (2015), she notes two key points
about this topic of pop-ups: the spatiotemporal
imaginaries of flexibility and interstitiality of pop-ups.
The flexibility of pop-ups allows pop-ups to continually
transform for different uses (p. 594). The interstitiality
of pop-ups suggest their incorporation to their
surrounding space, filling in-between stores and
businesses (p. 596).
Methods
The first step was to collect data from blogTO’s
database of events in 2017 to create a list of pop-up
shops. The collected data was then organized into an
excel spreadsheet to include the fashion and food pop-
up shops in Toronto in 2017, which totaled 117 pop-up
shops. The locations of these pop-up shops were then
mapped out to visualize the spatial relation of the pop-
up shops. Within the excel spreadsheet are the codes
used for the data collected to codify and signify the
differentiating factors between pop-up shops. The codes
used are FashionTypeSold (defined as Men, Women, or
Both), FoodTypeSold (defined as Sweet, Savoury, or
Both), StreetType (defined as Major and Minor), and
DaysOpened (defined as days opened for business).
Findings
From the collected data of 117 total pop-up shops, it
shows that there are significantly more women fashion
pop-ups (25) than men fashion pop-ups (3) with
fashion pop-ups including both nearing the amount of
women fashion pop-ups (24). There are more Savoury
food pop-ups (27) than food pop-up shops serving
sweet foods (11) and both types of food (17). In
regards to StreetType, there is a large difference
between Major (88) and Minor (19) codes. As for the
code for DaysOpened, the median is 2, the mode is 1,
and the average is 6.785.
The latter two codes, StreetType and DaysOpened, are
the significant factors when attempting to answer
where and why pop-up shops choose to be located.
Clearly shown in the data, 88 of the 117 pop-ups
included in the data have their entrances adjacent to
major roads. This is reflective of Patterson and Silver’s
hypothesis of rising tide and urbanism. It seems as
pop-up shops are continuously clustered around major
streets of the downtown core of Toronto which may
signal possibly positive reactions to pop-up shops
within the area, so it is possible that pop-up shops tend
to cluster in these areas due to past success of other
pop-up shops. As for the hypothesis of urbanism,
Patterson and Silver make note of the importance of
the density and foot traffic within an urban area, which
can play a role in the success of pop-shops need for as
much exposure and business within the time they are
opened for business.
DaysOpened is a significant code as it gives an idea of
the temporality of pop-up shops. With the median for
the days opened for pop-up shops at 2, the mode at 1,
and the average at 6.785, it can be said that pop-up
shops, at least in Toronto, are very temporary with
slight exceptions of outliers as noted through the
significantly higher average than median and mode.
This code highlights the point of flexibility of pop-up
shops made by Harris as the data show that these pop-
up shops can appear and reappear when and where
owners find it to be beneficial.
The mapping of the 117 total pop-up shops used in the
data aid in supporting the perfect audience hypothesis
Culture, Creativity, and Cities Capstone Course | Dept. of Sociology | University of Toronto – Scarborough
1265 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A4 Canada
and the interstitiality of pop-up shops. The mapping of
the spatial distribution of the pop-shops may provide
support for the perfect audience hypothesis as the map
showcases the clustering of the two types of pop-up
shops analyzed. It may seem that the downtown core
of Toronto are open to the variations of the fashion and
food pop-up shops. The map showcases the Harris’
idea of the interstitiality of pop-up shops as many of
the pop-up shops are interwoven between buildings on
similar major streets.
Conclusion and Recommendation
The qualitative research done here has shown that
there is a significance in where pop-up shops tend to
cluster. The fashion and food pop-up shops in Toronto
in 2017 have tended to cluster in the downtown core of
Toronto and are more dispersed in the areas further
from the downtown core. Though it seems that the
research fits well into Patterson and Silver’s three
hypotheses of rising tide, perfect audience, and
urbanism, and Harris’ points on pop-up shops’
flexibility and interstitiality, there is a lot of future
research to be done to understand more of this topic of
spatiality of pop-up shops. The research data was
limited to pop-up shops listed on the blogTO’s event
database. Some recommendations for future research is
to utilize other sources to collect data on pop-up shops,
other types of pop-up shops, a larger time frame to
compare, and lastly, how spatiality of pop-up shops
may be similar or different in other cities.
References:
Harris, E. (2015). Navigating Pop‐up Geographies:
Urban Space–Times of Flexibility, Interstitiality and
Immersion. Geography Compass, 9(11), 592-603.
doi:10.1111/gec3.12248
Patterson, M., & Silver, D. (2015). The place of art:
Local area characteristics and arts growth in Canada,
2001–2011. Poetics, 51, 69-87.
doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2015.05.003
Culture, Creativity, and Cities Capstone Course | Dept. of Sociology | University of Toronto – Scarborough
1265 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A4 Canada