Icecream, in collaboration with Graven Images and The Merchant City Initiative, initiated Wheeler Dealers as a pilot event for the establishment of the overarching direction of the Merchant City Initiative after their Futures Event held in March 2011. The feedback from the event highlighted the need to re-inhabit the extensive car parking resources that truncate the urban grain of the area and create physical vacuums of interaction. The motive was to create a hive of transient enterprise (Wheeler Dealers) in the monotony of the car park.

Icecream managed the delivery of the event on a short timescale to integrate with the Merchant City Festival. Collaborations were instigated with creative studios and artists including Pidgin Perfect, Ironbbratz and numerous sole traders and street performers to enliven the car park space. Car park spaces were turfed and filled with straw bales for respite whilst fresh lemonade and the Sunday papers were offered to passersby.

Community consultation for the Merchant City Initiative was carried out to suggest the types of retail that people sought for the area by sketching shop-fronts in a consequences type terrace. Creative containers offered plant pot decoration and subsequent planting while a flower bomb exercise left a permanent splodge of colour in the otherwise grey car park.