COVER STORY 
California merchants 'create' holiday season
Artificial snow, giant Christmas trees set up

Matt Krantz, USA TODAY  

Armed with the combination of improved technology borrowed from movie sets and deeper financial resources, Southern California retailers are engaged in a fierce competition to out-Christmas their rivals during the crucial holiday selling season.
 
FAUX SNOW
 
While snow is a nuisance for many East Coasters, it's an enchanting novelty to Southern Californians, many of whom have never had to scrape ice off a windshield. Manmade snowstorms have appeared in Southern California for years, usually in theme parks. It has snowed for the past four years at Disneyland's Main Street at the end of the Holiday Parade. Seeing how popular these artificial flurries have been with locals, more retailers are trying them.
 
During the holiday season, a blizzard occurs in the heart of sunny Los Angeles like clockwork every 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., the latest marketing stunt at The Grove, a shopping center here that has rigged snowmaking machines to a tree that churn out manmade snow while Let It Snow blasts on the public address system. The Grove began its artificial snowstorm last year. So many people were upset that they couldn't make it to the mall in time for the 7 p.m. snowfall, another daily storm was added this year for 8 p.m. And that was a good thing for Sandi Drinkard, a 37-year-old teacher who braved an avalanche of Los Angeles traffic to make it in time. "The kids don't get to see snow that often," Drinkard says while watching her children playing with — and trying to eat — the snow. "The kids love it." 
 
But these snowstorms are a reminder that no matter how hard retailers try, they often can't match the real thing. The snow used at The Grove, for instance, isn't snow, but a foam that smells like vanilla called MagicSnow. It's a patented material, which when mixed with air, creates snow "puffs" that float through the sky and dissolve upon contact. It's non-toxic, stain-proof, non-allergenic and definitely not snow. 
 
But that doesn't bother Mary Sion, who moved to Los Angeles a year and a half ago from Rhode Island. To her, it's not Christmas without snow, fake or not. "It puts me in the mood to shop," she says.  

Contact: MagicSnow Systems
(310) 289-9852  /  MagicSnow.com