CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — The local business community on P.E.I. is small, so when the Victorian Market was cancelled on Nov. 25, support came from all over.
For Helena Wood of Cured Creations — a Charlottetown-based charcuterie shop — something clicked when a producer dropped off some perishables Thursday morning. She saw how she could adapt her space to help.
“Well, we could move the table (into the corner), put someone in the corner there and just do pop-ups so people could sell their product there.”
She’s offering her space for free for vendors who are interested.
Cancellation
While it was unfortunate, the closure of the market wasn’t altogether surprising after the closure and cancellation of so many other markets throughout the year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Kimberly Davey, owner of gourmet cookie business At Your Service Creations.
“Always, the whole time sort of in the back of my head — and you’re watching the progression of the second wave across the country — I think all of us kind of thought that possibility was always there.”
Surprising or not, it wasn’t a decision made lightly by the team at Discover Charlottetown, but ultimately contact tracing would have been too difficult to operate safely, said executive director Heidi Zinn.
“Our hearts are just broken for these vendors, talking to people who have been created product for the last number of months and now all of a sudden can’t sell it.”
Sterling MacNeill, who operates Sterling Woodworking, is one of those vendors. On top of what he planned to sell, MacNeill also made 30 Adirondack chairs meant to go around fire pits at the market.
In a typical year, the Victorian Market is one of his top four fairs, but with the rest of them cancelled, this year’s market was even more important.
“I’m hoping to get rid of about 65 per cent of (my stock), 70 per cent of it.”
Adapting
Already, Zinn and Discover Charlottetown have put a list online of all the vendors who have an online presence, though many either didn’t have websites or Facebook pages and are scrambling to create them.
They’ve also moved some vendors into Founders’ Food Hall and Confederation Court Mall will allow some vendors inside over December, she said.
“It’s going to be on our minds basically now until Christmas for ways we can get these vendors in front of people.”
While Davey was preparing for the market since Monday, she was able to pivot and adapt her online store without too much trouble and a bit of help from her family.
She’s also had businesses reach out and offer her space, including Wood, said Davey.
“It was really heartwarming to know how many people were willing to offer their locations to us to help us set up.”
MacNeill, who lives in O’Leary, will be relying on phone and online sales. He and his wife are also preparing to sell out of their home, but he won’t be taking anyone up on an offer of space in Charlottetown, he said.
“For us to drive two hours to get down there, I just don’t think it’s worth it for us to go. We got to have a certain volume of people to make it worthwhile, you know. There’s a lot of work to loading and there’s a lot of work to building it and a lot of work to setting it up.”
A few vendors have already responded to Wood's offer and, though details are still being worked out, she’s just happy to be able to help out because she knows others would do the same for her.
“When I had reached out to my friend yesterday morning, she said ‘you’re honestly the third person to offer.’ That’s wonderful. That’s such a great thing about P.E.I., it’s not competition, you’re just trying to support each other.”
Find a list of vendors to support here.
