More than 350,000 shoppers visited Friars Walk during its opening weekend, with 102,000 descending on the centre on its first day of trading.      

Developers Queensberry Real Estate with Newport City Council and Newport Live hosted a four-day opening event programme featuring dance, music, street theatre and interactive workshops along with the new shops, restaurants and the eight-screen Cineworld cinema which opened to the public for the first time last Thursday.

The opening events included local bands as well as appearances from Newport County and Newport Gwent Dragons players.

A team of ambassadors handed out information about Friars Walk and the city of Newport and will be working again on the weekends of November 21 and 22 and December 5 and 6.

As one of only a few new shopping centres to launch in the UK this year, the £117 million scheme is hoping to be the basis of the wider regeneration in Newport.

It is estimated that it will double retail sales in the city, adding £120 million per year per year and overall, Newport’s catchment is predicted to increase from 211,000 to 367,000 with an estimated footfall of 10-12 million per annum.

Stuart Harris, co-founder and director of Queensberry Real Estate, said: “We’ve been blown away by the response of everyone to Friars Walk, the response from the both the public and traders has been overwhelmingly positive.”

Designed by Leslie Jones Architecture, Friars Walk opened on schedule last Thursday with 25 of the stores, six of the restaurants and the eight-screen Cineworld multiplex cinema trading. These included retail anchors H&M and Next, both 20,000 sq ft stores, and a 90,000 sq ft Debenhams department store.

Further restaurants are due to open in the coming weeks including Chiquitos and Frankie and Benny’s, with a Marks and Spencer Food Hall to launch in early December, in time for the Christmas rush.

Ty Edwards, sales director for Debenhams, said: “We have enjoyed the most exciting start for our Newport store and visitor numbers have been incredible, far exceeding our expectations. We smashed our sales target on opening day by mid-afternoon and have achieved strong double-digit growth on our sales targets every day since.

“Our full department store product offer is being very well received by shoppers, with fashion and gifting in particular performing extremely well. Our new food offers are also incredibly busy considering the great choice within Friars Walk.

"We are thrilled with the feedback received from our customers and are confident sales will continue to be strong this week as customers snap up our great winter offers.”

Rob Beacham, co-owner for Le Bistrot Pierre, said: "Our Newport opening has been our most successful opening to date. We couldn't have asked for a better launch. The comments from the people of Newport have been really complementary, it was fantastic to see so many local people experiencing Le Bistrot Pierre and we have received some great feedback about the bistrot's interior too - with one customer saying it's worthy of an award."

Justin Skinner, Senior VP of Marketing at Cineworld, said: “We’ve been overwhelmed with the response to our latest Cineworld opening at Newport’s Friars Walk. We’ve welcomed hundreds of local people to the cinema to see some of the latest releases. Feedback for the opening overall has been fantastic and we cannot wait to welcome more people in to Newport’s latest entertainment offering”