Galaxy Hangouts pop-up sounds like something dreamed up by a tech CMO and a lifestyle influencer after one too many oat milk lattes. And, well, that’s not entirely wrong.
Samsung’s latest retail experiment is part café, part showroom, part hangout — a branded space where you can sip free coffee and casually test out a Galaxy Z Fold7, Z Flip7 or Watch8 without the hard sell. The first one landed at Nelson Mandela Square in Joburg, and it’s currently touring South Africa like a low-key Coachella for foldables.
Yes, this is marketing. But it’s marketing that’s pretending not to be marketing, which is at least more fun than a billboard.
To Samsung’s credit, this isn’t your usual white-box product demo. There’s music, lounge seating, and challenges you can do to win prizes. It feels designed for people who are slightly tech-curious but not nerding out over hinge design on a Tuesday. You can try Galaxy AI’s features like Gemini Live, Audio Eraser and the eerily good Object Eraser while pretending you’re just waiting for your cappuccino to cool.
The point, if it’s not already obvious, is to make foldables feel… normal. Because as beautiful and clever as the Z Fold7 is, most people still treat foldable phones like something you need a launch event and a TikTok filter to use. A pop-up café might sound like a strange fix, but weirdly, it works.
According to Kgomotso Mannya, Samsung Africa’s CMO, the pop-ups are about meeting people where they live, work and play. Which is a polite way of saying: nobody’s going out of their way for a new phone anymore. So if consumers won’t come to the tech, the tech will come to them — in a branded coffee cup, no less.
And it’s not the only one doing this. Spotify’s Greasy Tunes pop-up café did something similar earlier this year, blending content, culture and carbs to get people engaging offline. Samsung’s taking notes, and it’s doing the same for mobile hardware.
You can also enter light gamified challenges to win a Z Fold7, Galaxy Buds Pro or a Watch8 — which gives the whole thing a bit of a festival feel. There’s a reason this doesn’t feel like your average mall kiosk. Samsung is borrowing vibes from social media and slipping its hardware into the picture.
Will it move units? Hard to say. But it’s clear this is less about direct sales and more about softening the strangeness of high-end tech. Foldables are still expensive, still niche, and still in need of some cultural warming-up. And if putting a 200MP camera next to a latte art swan helps, Samsung’s going to lean in.
When and where to find the Galaxy Hangouts pop-up
Johannesburg
- 25 – 27 July – Nelson Mandela Square
- 1 – 3 Aug – Good Life Show
- 02 Aug – Padel & Social Club James and Etholl Grey
- 04 Aug – Vega Campus
- 7 – 10 Aug – Melrose Arch
- 8 Aug – Business Park Woodlands Woodmead
- 12 Aug – Padel Lab Ruimsig Tournament
- 20 Aug – Wits Campus
- 22 – 24 Aug – Mall of Africa
- 29 – 31 Aug – Rosebank – The Zone
- 06 Sep – Galaxy Joburg Day
Pretoria
- 15 – 17 Aug – Menlyn Maine
- 27 Aug – Tuks Gibbs Campus
Cape Town
- 11 – 12 Aug – Vega Campus
- 12 – 14 Aug – Canal Walk Sports Scene Court
- 19 – 21 Aug – Tygervalley Mall
- 23 – 24 Aug – Stellenbosch University
- 26 – 28 Aug – V&A Waterfront Silo District
- 29 – 31 Aug – V&A Waterfront Pop-Up
Durban
- 31 July – Vega Campus
- 08 – 10 Aug – Hilton Art Festival
- 29 – 31 Aug – Midlands Mall
- 02 Sep – Ballito Padel