What’s Trending, Fall 2024
Rethinking the way we give
Figuring out the perfect gift for someone can be stressful — even if you know them really well — and we all seem to have at least one person in our lives who is impossible to shop for. According to consumer experts, one trending solution is to give the gift of experiences.
If you’re new to this idea, the premise is simple: Instead of purchasing a material object to give, you facilitate an experience for the recipient. Beth DuFault, consumerism expert and assistant professor of marketing at Pamplin School of Business at University of Portland, thinks this trend arose as a collective response to the frustrations of the pandemic. We were “isolated in our houses, and so more stuff is not necessarily something that we’re interested in,” she says.
There may also be an ecological motivation at play: Basically, experiences don’t end up in a landfill. Research also shows that giving experiences rather than things leads to more happiness and connection between the giver and the recipient.
What To Give
To find out the best ways to give an experience, we spoke with Shannon Fromma, staff writer for the Times Union and creator of “The Shopportunist,” a biweekly column about frugal living. “What’s nice about experience gifts is you can really get creative and tailor the experience to the person’s interests,” Fromma says. “There are a lot of great options around here, a lot of options that suit most budgets and age ranges.”
And if you’re worried that there’ll be nothing to unwrap, Fromma has an easy way around that dilemma. “My tip is to package the experience with something small. Like, if you’re giving a spa pass to your mom, you can wrap a loofah bar and a nice shower gel, or something like that, just so there’s something tangible and you’re not just emailing the tickets to her.”
Some of Fromma’s experiential gift suggestions:
- Live Nation Lawnie Pass: For $239 per pass, the recipient can attend every Live Nation Broadview Stage concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center from the lawn. With over 25 concerts each season, that’s an amazing gift, and works out to about $10 per performance. Though 2024 sales have ended, passes for next summer will likely be available in February.
- Ski pass packages: The SKI3 Season Pass provides passholders with lift access without reservations at Gore, Whiteface and Belleayre mountains, plus other perks including discounts on food and retail purchases and repair and tuning services, free scenic gondola rides, summertime price cuts and more. Passes start at around $550 with significant discounts for young children and people over 70.
- The Empire Pass grants free access to New York’s state parks for a whole year starting at $80. It’s also shareable among households.
- Regal Unlimited is a subscription pass for movie buffs. It starts at $18.99 per month and provides entry into hundreds of Regal theaters, plus concession discounts and other perks.
You might be thinking that these suggestions are on the expensive side, but they don’t need to be extravagant to be impactful. Experience gifts can be something as simple as a cooking class, a wine tasting, a local food tour, a single theater performance, a museum membership, concert tickets … anything you think the gift recipient would enjoy.
Caroline Barrett, who runs Capital Cooks in Colonie with her husband Paul, says many of their students were given gift certificates for their cooking classes. “Some people buy classes for people who are newly married, for example, or just graduated,” she says. “But most often, it’s women who have bought a class for their husband, or were given classes and got their husband to come.”
For Barrett, the benefits of gifting someone a cooking class experience are threefold: “People are learning together, eating together and talking together,” she says. “They’re getting these great experiences from these talented chefs, but they’re also building community and enjoying time spent with other people.”
Top image by 89Stocker, via Canva.com
