More than 1,500 shoppers enjoy Rochdale’s pop-up cinema

Amber Kelly and Helen Moule promoting Rochdale Exchange’s pop-up cinema on the mall

Hundreds of shoppers from across Rochdale headed to Rochdale Exchange Shopping Centre during the school holidays to enjoy children’s favourite flicks at its first ever pop-up cinema.

Between Monday 3 April and Sunday 9 April, the shopping centre showed free film screenings at its movie theatre including Finding Dory, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Good Dinosaur and The Lego Movie.

Centre manager, Lorenzo O’Reilly, said he was thrilled that so many people enjoyed the pop-up cinema: “Here at Rochdale Exchange, we love hositng family events and we are so pleased that more than 1,500 people came along to enjoy the fun.

“This was the first time we have ever hosted anything like this at the centre, so we are ecstatic that it was such a succss and it was great to see everyone having such a great time – one of our stores even sold out of popcorn.

“We had 10 films screening at the week-long cinema and The Secret Life of Pets was by far the most popular film with hundreds of children and their parents huddling on the beanbags to watch. Plus, we also had showings of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them on Monday and Saturday for shoppers above the age of 12.

Every shopper, who spent in any Rochdale Exchange store between Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 April had the chance to enter the pop-up cinema for free.

Mr O'Reilly said: “Throughout the week, we were encouraging our visitors to spend in our stores, no matter how big or small the purchase, and all they had to do is present their receipt to one of our stewards with their name, postcode and which store they were shopping in to receive a ticket.

“With the spend promotion in place, lots of our retailers did brilliantly off the back of this with Poundland and B&M having a bumper week.

“It was lovely to see so many families at Rochdale Exchange during the half-term and we hope everyone had a wonderful time at the centre’s first pop-up cinema.”