Inside the Happy Place, a new pop-up at Harbourfront with a giant confetti dome and cookie room
About a year ago, Happy Place founder Jared Paul, an L.A.-based entertainment producer, decided to create a space that could brighten people’s days. He assembled a group of artists in L.A. to brainstorm some ideas. The result was a multi-room exhibit and cafe filled with colours, confetti and candy, visited by more than 100,000 people. “It made us wonder, why not spread the happy?" said Paul.
After a stop in Chicago this summer, the pop-up has landed in Toronto, occupying 13 rooms and 20,000 square feet in Harbourfront’s 245 Queens Quay W building. The setup took a month to complete: the team painted walls, re-carpeted the floors and created new elements exclusive to the Toronto version, including six murals by local artist Jasmin Pannu. Here’s a look inside.
Seven-foot-tall stilettos made from 1 million M&Ms are front and centre at the confectionery cafe. Everything at the Happy Place was designed to be interactive, so guests can climb inside the shoes to snap a photo:
Visitors can help themselves to custom Happy Place M&Ms:
An entire bedroom suite is bolted to the ceiling of the upside-down room:
And this room features a rubber ducky cubby, complete with a yellow bathtub ideally suited for photo-ops:
These six-foot-tall XO letters are made from thousands of tiny mirrors. The wallpaper features 1,000 red lipstick prints:
For anyone opposed to making snow angels in the cold, there’s always the confetti version:
The chocolate chip cookie room is exclusive to the Toronto exhibit. It smells just like a bakery and everyone gets a bite-sized sample, baked by Toronto-based catering company the Food Studio. The plastic cookie you’re looking at is five-feet tall and the chocolate chips swing open so you can put your head through the holes:
What good is a double rainbow without a giant ball pit of gold?
The food, all prepared by the Food Studio, is as colourful as the space. Here’s a rainbow grilled cheese:
The Happy Place runs until January 1 at Harbourfront Centre.
Roxy Kirshenbaum is a freelance journalist based in Toronto. After graduating from Columbia University’s journalism program, she worked as a copy editor at InStyle magazine in New York and then as an editor at Surface magazine. When she returned to Toronto, she worked at Blue Ant Media and Cottage Life, and she has been a contributing writer and photographer at Toronto Life for many years.
