The City of Trail is discontinuing its Market on the Esplanade this summer. They ran on Wednesday evenings once a month last summer with live music, vendors and food trucks. In the past, it was held on Wednesdays and Fridays and was very successful, but Communications and Event Coordinator Andrea Jolly says there were some challenges.
“We experience some hot summers, some smokey summers and it was a really difficult combination of things to run a market.”
It ran for seven years and over the last two or three saw vendor and patron attendance decline. It was down to 16-24 vendors last year from 40-60 during its first five years. City staff recommended that it was time to pull the plug and council endorsed the decision on Monday.
There were various groups that helped organize the event over the years including the Chamber of Commerce and United Way. Last year it was entirely City-run and for the three markets that were held over the summer City Hall Finance staff, the CEC, Public Works and Parks & Recreation Arena staff spent a combined total of approximately 70 hours.
The Incredible Trail market, which isn’t organized by the City, will still run every second Saturday from April to October. Jolly encourages vendors to get in touch with them if they’re interested in joining. Incredible Trail is expected to host two evening markets at Music in the Park this year as well.
Market on the Esplanade was originally created as an initiative brought forward by the Downtown Opportunities and Action Committee (DOAC) in 2011 to help bring vibrancy to the downtown core and to increase shopping traffic to Trail’s businesses and services.