Rather than competing with big-box stores or online shopping, the focus is on experience, collaboration and creating a reason to come back into town at the end of the week. <\/p>\n
Visitors might catch an art opening, browse shops, enjoy a drink or bite to eat, or stumble across an in-store activation along the way.<\/p>\n
Napier City Business Inc general manager Pip Thompson said the initiative reflected wider conversations about retail evolution. <\/p>\n
\u201cRetail can\u2019t stand still. If customer habits are shifting, cities need to evolve too. What\u2019s exciting about Indy Nights is that it\u2019s grassroots \u2013 independent businesses stepping up and testing something practical together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lizzie Russell of Tennyson Gallery said the concept builds on the success of after-hours events already embraced by locals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen how much people love using the city after dark during events like Nuit Blanche. It\u2019s exciting to bring a little snippet of that feeling into something monthly, especially through winter and give people a reason to enjoy everything that makes Napier\u2019s CBD so unique \u2013 after 5.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Gretta Carney of Hapi, the initiative was also about protecting what makes Napier special.<\/p>\n
\u201cSupporting local independent businesses is one of the simplest and most valuable things you can do for your community. Use them or lose them. We\u2019re excited to be part of Indy Nights and hope the town gets in behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year, Thompson said strolling through the main streets of both Hastings and Napier after 5pm, all but a couple of retailers lock up and go home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe town quickly turns into a ghost town, with limited options for locals and visitors alike.\u201d<\/p>\n
Napier Giftware and Engravers owner Andrew Glenny responded and said he had tried late-night hours in the past, such as 8pm on a Friday in collaboration with others, yet found unless it was promoted and lots of shops were doing it then it was \u201cnot worth it\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf people don\u2019t know how many shops are going to open, then they are going to be hesitant to open [later],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if you know there are 50 shops doing it, then more people will do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s initiative will begin in \u201cone pocket of Napier\u2019s independent retail and creative precinct\u201d, with organisers hoping more locally owned businesses join over time.<\/p>\n
The monthly series will run through to September as a trial, with potential to continue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rather than competing with big-box stores or online shopping, the focus is on experience, collaboration and creating a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[74,138,31426,94642,71,6057,15557,11551,21556,23807,8526,424,13840,13457,48299,3607,111,139,69,6492,87100,5258,10041,61,780,19137,54,39082,6923],"class_list":{"0":"post-310645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-cbd","11":"tag-cluster","12":"tag-from","13":"tag-galleries","14":"tag-hospitality","15":"tag-hours","16":"tag-independent","17":"tag-initiative","18":"tag-latenight","19":"tag-life","20":"tag-like","21":"tag-look","22":"tag-monthly","23":"tag-napier","24":"tag-new-zealand","25":"tag-newzealand","26":"tag-nz","27":"tag-retailers","28":"tag-rethink","29":"tag-shift","30":"tag-spots","31":"tag-to","32":"tag-trading","33":"tag-traditional","34":"tag-trial","35":"tag-trialling","36":"tag-what"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}