Paquin Entertainment Group has been helping landlords across North America lease up unused or under-utilized space in their properties with unique exhibits.
The Group is behind the Marvel Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. exhibit at Yorkdale Shopping Centre and Beyond Monet at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre as well as many others in different major North American cities.
Justin Paquin, a producer with the company which was founded in 1985 – a full-service, diversified entertainment company, and home to four divisions: Artist Management, Artists Agency, Theatre & Film and Corporate Services, said the company has many projects it is working on for the future.
It has offices in Winnipeg, Toronto, Vancouver, Nashville, Las Vegas and San Diego.
“We’ve felt and we’ve seen from the business we’ve been doing we’re able to come in and provide an attraction to fit a gap in any developer’s portfolio,” said Paquin. “Sometimes it might take two to three years to fill a particular space. A lot of these developers are looking for of course those five years or 10 years or longer leases but until they get there, there might be a gap that entertainment producers can come in and fill.
“We did just that with Marvel Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. at the Yorkdale Shopping Centre. It was a great pairing and we’re happy to have had a successful run there.”
That particular initiative opened in October 2020 for three days then COVID shut it down for seven months. It reopened in July 2021 and has been opened since, with it expected to close March 27.
The Beyond Monet exhibit opened in August and will run until March 13.
The company has had many initiatives in this area. For example, the Beyond Van Gogh exhibit took place in several Canadian and American cities. Imagine Picasso took place in Vancouver as well as the Sistine Chapel there and Winnipeg and now in Calgary.
“We’ve got a bunch of them coming up. A lot of them,” said Paquin. “We have an incredible announcement that we’re making which I can’t say yet with a project that will be very, very big.
“Just because there’s an empty space available at any given retail space, doesn’t mean it can be easily activated upon. There is a shortage of operators in North America. There are plenty of empty spaces and there’s a whole bunch of people out there with ideas on what to put inside of it but there’s a shortage of people that can actually do it, that can actually operate that space, take out a lease, put everything in and execute.
“We have executed more touring exhibits in the past 12 months than any other company in North America. No one’s even close.”
Paquin said the company looks for a space that has a great location but when it has not been able to find a great location it has built their own. For example, in Austin, it put up a temporary structure on a parking lot. In Buffalo, it put up a temporary structure in a parking lot and that mall’s retail sales increased by 30 per cent.
“We’ve been developing close relationships with a lot of these developers to provide basically temporary attractions that can tour from location to location,” said Paquin.
“Right now it’s really busy. For 20 years, we were a theatrical producer and toured across North America – our theatrical shows. That’s an entirely different business unit. When it comes to the exhibits, that’s another business unit. We work with various different kinds of exhibits. The immersive exhibits and the interactive exhibits. But they all boil down to be different types of attraction and we are working with various different types of attraction.”
