Target Canada celebrated one of the first nice days of the season yesterday in Toronto with a pop-up patio party aimed at getting people out and celebrating after a lengthy winter season that has been tough on both Canadians and retailers.

The Target Patio was executed by the company’s in-house team in partnership with Periscope, Creative Visual Solutions and Veritas Communications yesterday at Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto. Passersby were treated to gift bags and food and drink samples from Target’s brands along with an outdoor concert from the Sam Roberts Band.

Livia Zufferli, VP marketing at Target, says the event was in the works for weeks but her team decided to press the green light and launch it this week after seeing the sunny stretch of weather.

“This is a Toronto-specific pop-up. We’ve been watching the weather and are calling this the first official day of spring, despite the season actually starting weeks ago,” she says.

In addition to yesterday’s event, which was a throwback to the one-off celebrations the retailer hosted before opening in Canada, Target also recently launched an “Essentials” campaign that aims to showcase its household items for moms. The campaign, with media by Carat and creative from KBS+ will live on TV, radio and digital and feature a rotating slate of staple products, says Zufferli.