For this year’s Halloween extravaganza, Workman-managed The Hildreds shopping centre in Skegness hosted Batman and his Batmobile.

The event – thought to be the busiest solo happening the NewRiver REIT plc-owned centre has ever staged – increased footfall to the centre by 68.1% week-on-week and 38.6% year-on-year. Proximity footfall cameras showed there were 35,780 people in the area on Saturday at the time when Batman and his Batmobile were present.

Average sales across the centre reportedly shot up by +16%; the target was just a +5% increase.

The onsite team provided Batman with more than 1,200 bags of sweets which he gave away in four hours to children and their families who arrived at The Hildreds for photos with him and his Batmobile, provided by Character Cars, which he then took for a spin around the town of Skegness.

Facebook posts for the event reached around 360,000 people, more than 16 times the resident population of Skegness, which is 22,280.

“It was an incredible day,” said our Steve Andrews, Centre Manager at The Hildreds. “We had people travelling from a great distance. I was speaking to one family who were visiting from Sheffield – 100 miles away – who had made a special trip to come and meet Batman and see the Batmobile, because their son (dressed as Batman himself), was actually called ‘Bruce Wayne.’”

Find out more about Workman’s Retail & Leisure Property Management.