How Harry Potter shops took over the high street
I t is a very normal summer's afternoon in Cambridge. Students — gowned and happy — wait to graduate in Old Schools courtyard. A donnish cyclist barks 'get out of the road' at four backpackers but the four backpackers are more concerned with their Instagram filters. Across the road, herds of tourists, corralled by guides and umbrellas, make a beeline for a Harry Potter shop.
They have plenty to choose from. Until last year, Cambridge somehow managed with only one shop devoted to the boy wizard — The Department of Magical Gifts, which opened at the top of Rose Crescent in 2018 and became an immediate success.
'We were on the Shambles in York and we saw The Shop That Must Not Be Named, which was the first unofficial Harry Potter shop,' says the owner, Roger Lefever, speaking over a dramatic soundtrack from the films. 'My wife nudged me and said, 'That's what you should do.' I'm a bit of a geek anyway but I wasn't confident enough to give it a go until we saw those queues in York.'
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