Zombie Malls?

"The reports of my demise were greatly exaggerated"

As a proud member of the Gen-X generation, malls hold a special place in my heart. During the 1970s, the "mall" business model exploded and these monstrous collections of stores transitioned shopping from downtowns to wide open spaces. Want that new Van Halen album? A Hawaian shirt and white blazer like Miami VIce? Turqouise Converse? The malls had it all, including a dating buffet of teens from other schools.

By the 90s, malls reached their zenith. The Mall of America took capitalism to another level, and advertizing turned Black Fridays into scenes involving insatiable zombies.

And then the Internet arrived, and just like the spandex of David Lee Roth went out of fashion in the span of thirty seconds to the opening chords of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Malls were no longer "cool." Amazon made searching a mall as easy as a click, and for almost two decades of my life, trips to the mall became very, very rare.

When I jumped into full-time authorship in 2023, my calendar began to fill up with all sorts of event types. I traveled to book stores, literary festivals, craft shows, art shows---any place I could find a crowd. Other vendors and authors then brought up a few companies that went to malls.

Malls?

In 2023?

Huh?

So in 2024, I tried it out by signing up for a "Quad Con" event happening nearby at the Rochester Apache Mall. Compared to bookstores and other events I'd recently done, the event rocked! I was more than happy. The other vendors, however, were not. Everybody I met that say seemed disappointed, including the event organizer.

Hmm?

So I made a point to sign up for a few more events in 2025 that took place at malls.

The results were quite obvious. By this point in my "late blooming" career, I've done hundreds of events, and going back to 2022, I've kept a list of my "all time best" and "all time worst" events. Well guess what, malls put 5 events into my Top 10 list in just the past six months. The reports that malls were dead are greatly exaggerated.

The Living Dead

But there are some serious issues. Many of the malls that I've visited this past years are shadows of what they used to me. There was a HUGE mall in Wisconsin where an entire wing was shuddered up including an empty food court. Heck, the mall management didn't even bother turning on the heat in that wing, which made for some pretty miserable vendors. To be fair, even though I've had 5 mall shows appear on the top ten list, I also had a mall show appear in my "all time worst" list when I sold 6 books in 2 days. Yuck. There were three factors. First, a dozen or so vendors were stuck in a hallway with a "dead" anchor store at the end of the wing. Because of this, folks that came to the mall simply didn't walk down that wing out of habit. Another factor was that there were simply too many authors that day, dividing the readers between a dozen of us. FInally, a passerby made a comment that resonated with me: "Why would you do a cool event like this on THIS side of town." Apparently, there was a "cooler" mall in town, and the mall we were at had lost its cool do to the bad neighborhoods that surrounded it. Changing neighborhoods can impact malls.

Each of the dozen-or-so malls that I visited had some degree of rot where anchor stores have closed and small spaces are left unfilled. For this reason, mall managers are inviting arts and craft vendors and Quod Con shows into the mall to "breathe a little life" into the building.

My perspective is limited to only weekend shows, but I've seen TONS of people filling the hallways. Malls are still a draw whether it's teenagers or the elderly.

The Walking Dead Mall Walkers

The Walkers

Did old folks do this back in the 80s walk malls? Well, it's quite a phenomenon in the Roaring 20s. The doors open early for vendors to set up, but hot on our heels are the Zombie Hordes of mall walkers. Usually they travel in packs. Some will go solo just so they can walk twice as fast. And round, and round, and round they go. The first few hours at a show are thick with these elderly exercizers yet they barely break their stride to check out a booth.

Quad Con

Originating from the Quad Cities, Quad Con has found a formula to combine nostalgia and pop culture. Throughout the year, they travel from mall to mall setting up shop. Some times, it'll be in a big vacant anchor store, but most of the times, it'll fill up the hallways. Just this winter, I followied this circus of sellers to malls in Wisconsin, Nebraska, Illinois and Iowa. The vendors specialize in toys, comics, music, collectibles, and so much more. Usually 60-100 vendors pack the mall, but my favorite part of these events is the Cosplay found at Cons (conventions) arrives at the mall. So dozens of costumed characters mix with the regular crowd and mall walkers to put humanity on full display. The nerd crowd and random mall customers make for a pretty efficient day of selling.

I'll do another blog entry one day chronicling the unique experience of this nomadic life.

The Pros and Cons

There's some good and bad for the mall scene. Having done so many outdoor events, one of my favorite draws to a mall show is...the weather. A show in January will usually be the exact same interior conditions as a show in July. Hungry? Food courts. Gotta go? No porta potties here, and there's usually a custodial staff and security staff keeping on top of matters. Unloading and loading is usually pretty easy and always paved with good parking. Even without advertising, hundreds of potential customers will walk right by your booth.

But the hours are long. I'm writing this blog right now because I'm working a 10-8 PM shift (because those are the mall hours) so selling at mall events can be a grind. Having several things to work on while you "wait for the readers" to walk by certainly helps the day go by.