After an absence of 18 months, the Handmade Market Canberra returns to EPIC as an in-person event in June.
The popular market was last staged as a live event in December 2019, unable to operate as usual due to coronavirus restrictions.
Marker founder and owner Julie Nichols happily announced on Thursday that ACT Health had given it the green light to go ahead in June at Exhibition Park in Canberra to stage a Covid-safe event.
"We're confident and ready to go and it's going to be awesome," Ms Nichols said.
Entry is still free but tickets need to be booked. Tickets can be booked here.
The dates and times for the markets are:
- Friday, June 25: noon to 7pm
- Saturday, June 26 : 9am to 4pm
- Sunday, June 27: 9am to 4pm
Ms Nichols said there would be 270 stalls and up to about 1250 people allowed in the buildings at any one time.
Other changes included no stalls in the narrow walkways and no seating for eating. Food stalls would still be there but customers would be encouraged to shop and eat and then go.
"We've looked at lots of stalls where you don't need a knife and fork to eat, you can just walk and eat," Ms Nichols said.
The announcement that the market was returning was a piece of good news after a difficult 18 months when Ms Nichols did consider closing the market and walking away.
Instead, the market went online and survived.
"It's been amazing in that it was gut-wrenching and crippling and we had no idea how to run a market when you can't run a market," Ms Nichols said.
"We went online which was great, it was what we needed to get through. It also gave us a lot of time to really reassess what we're doing."
Ms Nichols said the support of stallholders and customers had been crucial.
"Our community was amazing. It kept us going," she said.
Ms Nichols said there would be no time limit on people shopping and there was no need to book multiple sessions, but she asked people once they had finished to "be mindful that there may be customers outside waiting to come in and enjoy the market too".
The markets were allowed to have three customers per four square metres of usable space which equated to about 2500 customers at any one time. Ms Nichols said they were staying cautious and allowing about half that number in at any one time.
Customers to the markets will also have to check in using the Check In CBR app.
