As the busiest shopping season of the year draws closer, a flurry of pop-up makers markets is once again on the horizon for small businesses and their customers – typically, a crowd of locals and their supporters.
The Good Trade Makers Market puts a wrinkle in pop-up events, combining the power of two regions known for their creativity: Greater Providence and Burlington, Vt.
The market is actually two events – one held at The WaterFire Arts Center in Providence from Nov. 23-24, and the other held in Burlington two weeks later, from Dec. 7-8.
Rather than a hyperlocal focus, The Good Trade Makers Market in Providence hosts around half of its vendors from Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts communities, while the remaining small businesses travel in from throughout the U.S. for the two-day gathering.
Among those who travel in from outside of the area, many make the drive south from Burlington. Two weekends later, some of the event’s Rhode Island vendors will make the reverse journey.
With this concept, the event’s co-organizers hoped to create a space where “outside businesses can come in and meet a new demographic … then on the flip side, we bring The Good Trade up to Burlington, Vt., [with] a lot of Rhode Island businesses with us to reap those benefits and introduce them to a new demographic and city,” said BJ Mansuetti, co-founder of Rhode Island-based Ampersand Creative LLC.
And while visiting business owners return to their home state once the weekend is over, they’ll ideally establish a sort of permanence in Rhode Island and Vermont through their products, Ampersand Creative co-founder Robin Dionne says.
Those businesses are “communicating with local stores and boutiques,” she said, “hopefully getting their product on the shelves” at local retailers.
Under Ampersand, Mansuetti and Dionne run a variety of markets held throughout Providence, each with its own theme. In addition to The Good Trade Makers Market, these offerings include the Little City Thrifty Vintage Market; floral-focused Bloom Flower and Home Market; vegetarian event RI VegFest; and the gluten-free marketplace GFree Fest.
The Good Trade Makers Market is unique in its focus on commerce between two cities.
“We wanted a rotating cast of vendors to come to Rhode Island,” Dionne said, including many who have never set up shop in the Ocean State.
“So we’ve created this tourism aspect for our event,” Dionne continued, with visiting businesses staying in participating hotel blocks, going to area restaurants and bars, and providing an overall boost to the state’s economy.
This hospitality aspect also draws from Mansuetti’s own experiences with traveling in support of a livelihood, he says.
“I was a traveling musician for a long time and being on the road and bringing your business to different places [comes with] a lot of anxiety,” Mansuetti said. “You don’t know where you’re going to stay. You don’t know what the town is like. You don’t know what to expect. So we try to put a lot of work into making it easy for businesses to come to Rhode Island … so they can focus on their business and not the logistics around it.”
The market, now in its third year, includes about 180 businesses, with approximately 95 from Vermont. But overall, visiting businesses represent 11 states, including all New England states but also extending to the Mid-Atlantic, South and West Coast.
A table at the market proved to be a hot real estate spot, with Ampersand whittling vendors down from a pool of around 1,500 applicants. For shoppers, advance tickets are $8. While tickets may be sold at the door, organizers say some sessions have sold out in the past.
The partnership with Burlington rose in part due to the organizers’ fondness for the Vermont city, Dionne and Mansuetti say.
Burlington’s smaller but vibrant business community and character felt “almost like a little sibling of Providence in a way,” Mansuetti said, and Burlington city officials showed an eager interest in the partnership.
Meanwhile, Burlington’s Hula coworking and innovation spaces overlooking Lake Champlain also provided a venue suitable in size and atmosphere, the co-organizers say.
The market was held exclusively in Providence for its first year in 2022, with its Burlington equivalent established the next year. A smaller number of makers represent the Ocean State at the market’s sister occurrence, with about 10 to 20 Rhode Island small businesses preparing to make the trip north this year.
But Dionne and Mansuetti will continue to encourage ties between the two cities, they say, while also looking to expand The Good Trade Makers Market to additional locations.
