Burning Man, Record Breaking Season Tickets, and Alt-Data

Short on Time, Big on Insights: Your monthly rundown on the most compelling narratives.

Ian Ross, Head of Civic

The Burning Man effigy traditionally burns on Saturday night in Black Rock City, marking the pinnacle of the Burning Man event.

Data reveals that typically, half of festival goers leave on Sunday morning, while the rest stay for the Sunday evening Temple Burn before departing late Sunday night or Monday morning. However, this year's torrential rains left many stranded 'on playa' until at least Monday afternoon, with event organizers advising a Tuesday departure to avoid mud-related issues.

Once back on the road, 75% of this year’s burners headed straight home, a significant uptick compared to prior years. Food was also top of mind for festival goers who had stretched their supplies at least 48 hours longer than they had planned, with In-N-Out Burger in downtown Reno and Mountain Mike’s Pizza seeing a YoY uptick in hungry festival goers at their doorstep.

Caroline Wu, Director of Research

After a summer of once-in-a-lifetime concerts (Taylor Swift! Beyonce!) and box office records smashed (Barbenheimer), the fall season brings the return of college and pro football.

The undeniable power of stardom and buzz continues, manifested most recently in Coach Prime's Colorado Buffaloes causing east coasters to stay up past 2am, smashing an ESPN late-night record for college football, to watch the riveting game against the Colorado State Rams.

With Colorado season tickets selling out for the first time in school history before August, we'll keep an eye on those stadium traffic numbers. We're also seeing strong traffic numbers for sports/entertainment districts as they transform into locations that include more than just the games, but also essential anchors, services, residential, and hospitality.

Ethan Chernofsky, SVP of Marketing

Off-price apparel leaders have performed so exceptionally well that their collective strength might even be underrated.

What do we mean by this??

The “treasure hunt” experience, while exciting, is not exactly convenient – even when so many are convinced that convenience is among the most important features a retailer can have. The lack of a real digital presence should be an obstacle to overcome – let’s all remember the narrative surrounding Burlington’s expected demise following the closing of their website in 2020 – yet, it doesn’t seem to be causing any real problems.

The weeks beginning September 4th, 11th and 18th saw average weekly YoY visit increases of 12.5% for T.J. Maxx, 11.9% for Marshalls and 7.2% for Burlington. Ross - largely because of heights hit last year - saw visits flat YoY. For context, the Superstore category saw average weekly visit declines of 5.5%, while the Clothing and Department Store categories saw an average decline of 1.1% and 14.5% respectively.?

The short version? Yes, off-price apparel is well aligned with current economic trends, but there is something unique and special about their performance – often because of how directly they operate against prevailing narratives.

Ben Witten, Head of Real Estate Strategy

As the corporate world witnessed a surge in return to office mandates, Labor Day 2023 emerged as a highly anticipated milestone in the realm of office utilization.

However, our Nationwide Office Index data reveals that while there was an increase in post-Labor Day employee visits, the number of days employees spent in the office still lags behind pre-COVID levels by a significant 35% (through September 17th). Yet, this level does remain a marked improvement on the first half of 2023.

Could it be the signal of a new stage of a wider return to office?

Thomas Paulson, Director of Research & Business Development

In September we witnessed strong consumer activity and retail engagement during the Back-to-School season, but we have since seen a slight slowdown.?

The slump is across categories, price points, and geographies. The only exception is retail brands that are known for "thriftiness" and deep value -- hard discount grocery and off-price. The weeks beginning September 4th, 11th and 18th saw average weekly YoY visit increases: thrift stores saw a 2.5% increase, off-price retailers grew by 5.7%, but department stores declined by 14.5%.?

Over the past year, we have seen seasonal events create sharper and more concentrated highs and the troughs between the events becoming broader and deeper.

This dynamic was intensified this month. However, we anticipate that this situation will improve once the holiday season arrives.

R.J. Hottovy, Head of Analytical Research

In a year where consumers have shown up for holidays, what can we expect for the 2023 year-end holiday shopping season?

Who doesn’t love a holiday? In a year where consumers are spending more on necessities and pulling back on discretionary purchases, one of the more interesting developments is consumers’ willingness to spend for “holiday” events.

What does this mean for the rest of 2023? It’s an interesting question given that YoY retail visitation trends have generally slowed after the back-to-school season in late July and early August and continued through Labor Day. Still, there are several reasons to be optimistic near term, including Halloween and Amazon’s “Prime Big Deal Days” in October.

Dan Hight, VP Channel Partnerships

On the heels of Groceryshop last week, much of the conversations were centered around two key themes: retail media and better understanding of the customer journey (to the store and inside of the store).

Retailers of all sizes are working with a myriad of partners from application developers, signage companies, in-store sensor technologies, and market intelligence.

Customers' expectations are growing and retailers are looking to meet them where they are.

From a retail media perspective, foot traffic, true trade area, and demographic information are being harnessed to provide both quantitative and qualitative insights for content and promotional messaging. This month, Hy-Vee, a major grocery player, entered the retail media network arena by launching the RedMedia brand. Hy-Vee's extensive business portfolio will provide consumer packaged goods (CPG) partners with a wide range of flexible advertising opportunities.

Ed Lavery, VP Investor Intelligence

Geolocation data is an increasingly used source of alternative data for the investment industry, who with limited financial information publicly available, are looking to analyze company and industry performance in near real time.

Hedge Funds, Private Equity, Venture Capital and Credit Investors are using foot traffic data to predict financial performance or use it to increase their confidence in their investment decisions. Retail, Consumer, Entertainment, Healthcare and Real Estate are the investment sectors for which this data is the most useful.

Bloomberg announced on September 11th that they are integrating Placer data into their terminal as their first alternative data partner of their new AltD<Go> product. This partnership underscores the increasing importance of foot traffic data to the investment industry.

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