Love Your Local Market is a celebration of the market culture, taking place over a fortnight in May each year. More than 1,200 markets took place in 2015 celebrating around 7,000 events and market days. Love Your Local Market is also about entrepreneurship with the markets industry providing in excess of 10,000 pitches to new traders over the last three years. Last year the campaign went international with 18 countries taking part. The event has also gone viral on Twitter, Facebook and other social media.
Superdry, Monsoon, Marks and Spencer and a raft of other household names all started their business journey on a market stall. The Love Your Local Market campaign celebrates this and aims to champion markets; raising their profile and getting more people engaged in their future success and livelihood.
This year’s Love Your Local Market campaign aims to encourage both residents and visitors to Darlington to shop at their local market and celebrate what Darlington Markets have to offer.
To mark the campaign, new traders are being offered an outdoor stall in Darlington for £10 at the Big Market event on Saturday 21 May or a pop-up stall in the Covered Market for the ‘Love Your Local Market’ fortnight, between Tuesday 17 May and Tuesday 31 May.
The market event will feature regular and specialist market stalls, live music and family entertainment, including Punch and Judy and a circus magician on Joseph Pease Place.
Anyone interested in trying out a market stall during the campaign should call 07966487773. Darlington markets also offers special deals and discounts for stall holders throughout the year for both the indoor and outdoor markets.
Councillor Nick Wallis, Darlington Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for Leisure and Environment, said:
“Trying out a market stall is a great way to test the water to see if a business idea works and to see what customers think. Many big names have started their business journey in this way, making it a tried and tested route to success. This is an ideal time to give it a go and I would urge people to call our team to see how they can help.”
For more information about Darlington markets visit www.darlington.gov.uk/markets. Darlington Markets also have a Facebook page: www.facebook.com/darlingtonmarkets