This year’s pictures with Santa may look a little different, as no one wants the Big Guy getting sick. So, in a creative way to provide children and families with pictures with Santa, Nebraska Furniture Mart turned to technology for a solution.
Nebraska Furniture Mart has announced “The Santa Experience,” a new, one-of-a-kind, tech-driven in-store experience coming to its Grandscape location in The Colony, Texas.
The innovative experience is designed as an “interactive museum” where life-size picture frames featuring Santa and his friends come to life. When customers enter their own frame, a helpful holiday elf tips off Santa and children can speak with him about their holiday wishes while taking photos together in a touch-free experience.
Customers can choose from a variety of background scenes, from a traditional holiday yule log to a cute candy cane forest. The innovative 3-camera system takes separate photos of each frame and “stitches” them together into a single image, creating the illusion that Santa and the guests are posing together in one frame, when in reality they are safely social distanced the entire time. Photos will be emailed to the customer.
“Santa’s visit to NFM is a time-honored holiday tradition and one of our favorite in-store events,” said NFM Marketing Manager Ashanti Coleman. “We know our customers always look forward to Santa coming to visit us from the North Pole and we wanted to make sure we could keep that holiday magic alive in a fun and safe way.”
The Santa Experience will be open to guests:
December 5 and 6 from 11am-2pm and 3pm-6pm
December 9 from 5:30pm-7:30pm
December 12 and 13 from 11am-2pm and 3pm-6pm
December 16 from 5:30pm-7:30pm
December 19 and 20 from 11am-2pm and 3pm-6pm
The Santa Experience is ADA-compliant and wheelchair accessible. Masks are required in the store and throughout the experience outside of when the photo is being taken. NFM Event Team staff will be available to guide guests through the experience and a photographer will also be on hand to assist. To avoid lines and manage crowds, reservations must be made in advance, starting November 21, at nfm.com/visit-santa.
Nebraska Furniture Mart was founded by Rose Blumkin in 1937 in the basement of her husband’s pawn shop in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1983, investor Warren Buffett purchased a majority interest in NFM and made it part of the Berkshire Hathaway family of companies. Today, NFM is one of the nation’s largest home furnishings retailers, selling furniture, flooring, appliances and electronics. NFM currently has locations in Omaha, Des Moines, Iowa, Kansas City, Kansas and Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas. For more information on Nebraska Furniture Mart, visit www.nfm.com.
