You can look but not buy...yet

Leading to the Q4 opening of Ikea, the store is holding pop-ups and an online festival

YOU may have missed the Ikea Festival held online on Sept. 17, and the SM Mall of Asia (MOA) pop-up event (ending on Sept. 19) but don’t fret. The highlights are still posted online at ikea.com/ festival, while the pop-up will travel for weeks to come, beginning in SM Megamall.

The festival opens the doors of 100 homes across 50 Ikea markets. It features house tours, healthy, planet-friendly, and zero-waste cooking demos, and live performances (at home). It also featured views of the factory floor in Zbąszynek, Poland, to the prototype shop in Älmhult, Sweden. One can also view the history of Ikea in the website.

Ikea also put up a billboard featuring more than 1,000 Filipino families along EDSA. The billboard, seen at the Magallanes section of the major metro Manila highway, is a collage of the many life-at-home stories of Filipinos shared with Ikea last June. “This is a celebration of life at home in the Philippines, in a time when our home has never been so important,” said Deputy Ikea Pasay City store manager Aileen Prodigalidad during a media event last week.

The Ikea store in Pasay is slated to open in the fourth quarter (Q4) of this year, although an exact date had not been disclosed during the media event. Ikea Pasay City store manager Georg Platzer said, “It’s so good that we can finally kick off a fantastic festival today, and also announcing the opening of our firstever pop-up store in Mall of Asia.”

Unfortunately, the pop-up store is meant only to be seen — no buying is involved. As Ms. Prodigalidad clarified, “The pop-up is an inspiration. This is a showcase of life at home. At the moment, we are not selling our products. We’re not going to be selling products at the pop-up.”

The pop-up will go on to other locations, beginning in SM Megamall in the coming weeks, said Ms. Prodigalidad. The locations and dates for the next pop-ups were not discussed.

To access the Ikea Festival and get the full program, visit the festival page ikea.com/festival, with no sign-ups or payments required. —