Circle Craft Holiday Market 50th Anniversary
byThe Circle Craft Holiday Market returns to the Vancouver Convention Centre for its 50th season, November 6-10, 2024, welcoming over 300 artisans.
What began in 1974 as a church craft fair, has flourished into Western Canada’s longest-standing and largest handmade marketplace. An ethical, local alternative to online shopping, throwaway fashions, and copycat designs, the five-day fine craft market offers visitors a unique opportunity to connect with skilled artisans, take in live demonstrations, and enjoy festive food and drink while getting ahead of their holiday shopping.
Circle Craft Holiday Market 50th Anniversary
- Dates: Daily from 10:00am November 6-10, 2024.
- Until 9:00pm Wednesday to Friday, 7:00pm Saturday, and 5:00pm Sunday.
- Location: Vancouver Convention Centre (1055 Canada Place, Vancouver)
- Tickets: Tickets can be purchased online for $16 per adults and $12 per youth and senior. Includes free re-admission.
- Save 25% from now until October 31, 2024. Save 50% off after 5:00pm November 6, 7 & 8, 2024.
For five decades, the Circle Craft Holiday Market has drawn artists, makers and craftspeople from Canadian coast to coast, with this year’s vendors travelling from as far as Halifax, Nova Scotia, to set up pop-up shops in the 135,000-square-foot Convention Centre space.
View the full list of exhibitors »
Exhibitors are all jury-selected; the 2024 artisan mix includes 26 “Budding Artists”, 45 new vendors, 33 gourmet food and drink creators, and 36 members of the Circle Craft Co-op, the artist-run endeavour with a flagship store located on Granville Island year-round.
Arts range from ceramics, glass, metals and wood to jewellery, textiles and paper. DIY cocktail kits, packaged gourmet foods, and eco-friendly bath and body products are also in the mix. But like all great craft markets, the real treasures are the stories behind each handcrafted item.
Shopping Markets in Person
When you shop in person at a market (versus online) you get to talk to the person who’s made it, says Corin Flood, Bowl Maker, Circle Craft Co-op President. “That’s a totally different transaction. Ordering online, you have no idea of its provenance.” People get pleasure in buying the gifts, then they get pleasure in giving the gifts, and the vendor gets pleasure in selling it […] For many artisans, these holiday markets are a third to a half of their sales for the whole year. Financially they’re important, but they’re also rewarding socially. You get to see colleagues, friends, and clients who come year after year.”
History of Circle Craft
In 1972, a Danish textile artist named Yetta Lees organized a marketplace of local artisans in Victoria to help local artists market their wares to the broader public. It was a resounding success. In 1974, Lees and others secured a $500,000 grant for a new craft co-operative, aiming to educate craftspeople so they could make a living from their work. That winter, Lees set up an expanded market out of an old East Vancouver church (now The Cultch, or East Van Cultural Centre), with a two-tier layout for both juried crafts and first-come exhibitors. The Circle Craft Holiday Market was born!
Continue reading market history…
“My first experience with the market was in the East Van Cultural Center, a small and intimate space venue with a warm, cozy feeling,” recalls Gordon Hutchens, a Canadian potter master and popular Circle Craft mainstay since 1975 (the market’s longest-standing exhibitor). “Booths were much smaller, and it was very long, it actually ran three weeks right up to Christmas.”
Hutchens cherished his interactions with return customers, including Rosemary Brown, Canada’s first Black female member of a provincial legislature, as well as with other artists, like woodworker Claudia Hayward (a vendor from 1979 to today) and tapered candlemaker Paul Yard. Yard exhibited at the first-ever Circle Craft Holiday Market and subsequently served as the co-op’s General Manager, running the Christmas Market at the VTCC from 1987-2018, before he passed away earlier this year.
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