Local markets are really important events in any community. Not only do they add vibrancy, character, and convenience to a community, but they also give small businesses the opportunity to showcase their products and services to a wider audience. That’s not to mention that Shop Local campaigns and healthy eating are global trends that continue to gain momentum and have a positive impact. At the local and regional levels, local community markets are an opportunity for small businesses to connect consumers to their food and local production systems by serving as consumer educators and revitalising the way we shop and eat.
This blog will show you how to run a market using Eventbrite’s ticketing resources and solutions, which make it easy for you to plan, promote, and manage recurring events such as pop-up stalls and community markets. For example, our timed ticketing can be used to easily schedule workshops, performers, and other attractions throughout the day of an event.
Read on for some insights from the organisers of Melbourne’s Finders Keepers Markets. With innovation and inspiration, you too could grow a recurring market event that adds loads of value to your business and community.
Market stall success stories: The Finders Keepers Markets
For this event creator spotlight, we spoke to Sarah Thornton, Managing Director and co-founder of the Finders Keepers Markets, a roaming food, design, and handmade goods market. Operating around Melbourne since 2008, these markets were co-founded with Brooke Johnston, a Design School graduate at the time.
Building a community
When launching her own business and selling her range, Brooke found that she couldn’t find the right retail fit that was both accessible and appealing to a design-savvy crowd. Sarah says the markets were conceived as part of the conscious consumer revolution. She and Brooke recognised the growing awareness of investing in quality, sustainable products that use modern artisanship. So, The Finders Keepers was born, and now they’ve been running successful markets for over 14 years.
With an extensive back-catalogue of events on the Eventbrite platform, Sarah has some great insights about how to establish and grow a recurring community event. “Before the pandemic, we hosted a number of workshops at our events, using the Eventbrite platform to manage the ticket sales”, she explains. “With its super established promotion and ticketing tools, we knew our audience would have trust in purchasing tickets. It also allowed us to be cashless at events, which became important in 2020. At that time, we had to make some major pivots in how we operate”.
Pivoting online
One of Sarah’s pivots was to start hosting online workshops, which became hugely popular. Self sign-up and onboarding made it easy to manage. In 2021, they began offering pre-purchase tickets to the in-person markets, and they continue to grow this as in-person events reappear on the calendar.
With the data captured from ticket sales for each market through Eventbrite, they’ve been able to deliver bespoke communications to their ticket holders. They’re also able to integrate new Finders Keepers attendees into their community easily, supporting audience growth overall. “Giving Finders Keepers shoppers options when it comes to attending events and interacting with them has been key to building our loyal and ever-growing audience”, Sarah says. “Ultimately [it] helps us to deliver on our core aim: to support, empower, and celebrate creative small businesses”.
Using Eventbrite tools and features
These event creators are a great example of how you can use lots of resources on the Eventbrite platform, not just the easy ticketing and pre-paid POS. “We love the plugins for marketing and how they give us the ability to track where visitors are coming from and cart conversions”, says Sarah.
Plugins like Eventbrite Boost make it easy to communicate with attendees. “We use a lead-in sequence to the event, which was helpful with specific info, for example around COVIDSafe event planning. The reporting is another great feature and being able to download and use the email lists for continued re-targeting for future events. Now we easily track and measure results based on these findings”.
Timed ticketing is another event creation feature that is popular for several reasons. “We [used timed ticketing] as a solution for our attendance limit due to COVIDSafe restrictions in 2021. It was a great solution for us at a time when there were heavy restrictions on event density limits, allowing for more customers to visit during allocated times. We managed it onsite by having a changeover time period and wristbands, which helped guests usher out when they had completed their session”.
As restrictions ease, they continue to use timed ticketing for specific event needs, such as workshops and masterclasses. “Going forward, we want people to be able to come and go freely with a day pass”, Sarah says. “Our seasoned shoppers are used to being able to come for the day if they want to. For our style of event, daily passes and the freedom to check in when they arrive are a much better fit for us”.
Looking ahead
We asked Sarah about how their events have been bouncing back in 2022, including what’s next and what tips or advice she would give other event creators looking to host their own market for the first time or to grow their existing community markets. “At the moment”, she tells us, “we’re super excited to get back into the events space and are looking forward to a full year of market events again! We’re also launching in the educational space with our first Summit this year in June. Our goal is to continue to help support small business growth by providing more events and resources to them”.
She concluded, “Eventbrite has a supportive and responsive team to help you get set up, so we definitely recommend using these services. The reporting provides comprehensive data that businesses can use to make strategic marketing decisions as they build and grow their own markets or events”.
How to run a successful local community market
Local community markets are easy to set up on Eventbrite. As the Finders Keepers market stall success story shows, you can use tools such as timed ticketing to make initial start-ups effortless and then continuously grow and adapt in an ever-changing marketplace.
