Super Tuesday: Eastern City businesses launch Christmas campaign to boost area’s festive hospitality offer

This week will see the first-ever Super Tuesday in The City – as the Eastern City Business Improvement District (EC BID) launches its exciting Christmas campaign to support food and beverage businesses across the area.

Starting on 29 November and ending on 20 December, Super Tuesday shines a light on the area’s restaurants, pubs, and bars, helps increase footfall and attract visitors to support the hospitality sector in the lead up to Christmas.

The sector has been hard hit by the pandemic and soaring inflation and is looking to bounce back in the crucial pre-Christmas period.

Visitors and diners will be able to enjoy entertainment, throughout the day and evening, including lucky dip prizes, winter art installations, choirs, and stilt-walkers, as well as a chance to win the ‘Ultimate EC Experience’ competition worth £3,000. A Spin the Wheel game will provide opportunities to win a variety of lucky dip prizes, including a gift voucher from Cheese at Leadenhall Market, a bottle of champagne from Amathus, and a gift voucher for the Ten Trinity Spa at the Four Seasons Hotel.

Alongside these offers and prizes, Super Tuesday will also light up the whole Eastern City area with a range of Christmas installations including:

A four-metre-long neon angel wings installation at 20 Fenchurch Street’s Pocket Park (close to the entrance of the Sky Garden), which will be in situ for four weeks from Tuesday 29 November, allowing members of the public to stand in between the angel’s wings, providing superb photo and social media opportunities.

Christmas choirs each Super Tuesday – at 20 Fenchurch Street’s Pocket Park on 29 November, St Helen’s Church on 6 December, Leadenhall Market on 13 December and The Leadenhall Building on 20 December.

Christmas Angel Stilt Walkers, who will walk around the Eastern City area each Super Tuesday and captivate passers-by with their stunning costumes.

On Tuesday 6 December, the Eastern City team will unveil their Christmas tree at St Helen’s Church in Bishopsgate – the light switch-on will be at 6pm followed by evening Christmas Carols at 7.30pm inside the church.

On Tuesday 6 and 13 December, snow fall is predicted for parts of the EC area, with snow-blowing machines creating a truly magical winter wonderland experience for workers, visitors and residents.

The ultimate Eastern City Competition: a lucky winner and a friend will be able to experience the best activities the area offers for free! The competition prize, worth £3,000, includes brunch at Darwin Brasserie at Sky Garden, dinner at Bob Bob Ricard City, and an overnight stay at the Four Seasons Hotel London at Ten Trinity Square. More info on the competition can be found here (note: website will go live on Monday).

Super Tuesday is delivered by the EC BID, one of the newest Business Improvement Districts in the City of London, formed in April 2022 after local businesses voted overwhelmingly in favour of establishing the EC BID. Super Tuesday aims to help transform the area into a leisure destination, championing the local hospitality offer and challenging traditional perceptions of the Square Mile.

Super Tuesday is in part a response to the harsh economic climate affecting consumers and businesses alike, with the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, last week announcing that the country was ‘now in recession’.

Recent survey data commissioned by EC BID and produced by Deltapoll found (note: website will go live on Monday) that 51% of people across the country (and 50% in London) are planning to spend less on going out and leisure activities in the lead up to Christmas than they did in a typical year before the pandemic.

Andrew Reynolds, Chairman of the EC BID, said: “This festive season we are facing the double whammy of a cost-of-living crisis, alongside a workforce still in flux after the pandemic, with hybrid working still very much part of the mix. The City of London is resilient, but the current economic conditions are hitting businesses that are still struggling to get back on their feet. Our vital ‘eco-system’ of businesses is essential for our army of office workers, and they all need our support.

“Super Tuesday is about meeting this challenge head-on – driven by insight and encouraging workers and visitors to enjoy the City around them. The City is so much more than a place of work – through our Super Tuesday campaign we want to shine a light onto some of the capital’s best restaurants, bars and retail destinations.”