Kitchener to test Wednesday evening market next summer

Kitchener Market proposes trial, possibly licensed with live music

KITCHENER — The Kitchener Market will open one evening a week next summer as a trial, after a survey showed strong interest in a midweek evening market.

“People have said they would go to a market twice a week, and there’s more and more people living downtown or working downtown,” said market manager Kim Feere.

Planning is in the early stages, but Feere said she is thinking the trial would run Wednesday evenings possibly from 4 to 8 p.m., likely for four weeks in summer.

“Evenings would be totally new,” Feere said, adding that an evening market could attract both families and people looking for a night out. She’d like it to be licensed, with live music and vendors selling things like ice cream that would appeal on a summer evening.

A midweek market could attract both Saturday regulars and people who don’t go to the Saturday market, she said. “We can maybe pull in a different crowd and have it as a destination and a customer experience that’s quite enjoyable . ... It’s not too, too late for families.”

She stressed that the evening market would be very different than the Saturday market, which typically attracts about 11,000 people and 75-80 vendors each Saturday.

This market would likely only have one of each type of vendor, and would be limited to the market’s upper floor and the outdoor piazza facing King Street.

“The key to the success of this event is setting expectations,” she said. “It’s not like we’re going to have all the selections of a Saturday market. As the popularity grows, I could add on more vendors.”

A Wednesday market wouldn’t compete with the St. Jacobs Thursday market, and could be done fairly inexpensively, because the Kitchener market is already open and staffed for its popular cooking classes on Wednesday evenings, she said.

Market staff will evaluate the success of the event at the end of the trial and see if it’s worth repeating, she said.

Kitchener held a daytime midweek market from 2004-07, but the idea fizzled because of poor attendance. Calls for a midweek market crop up periodically, most recently in 2016 when the market held consultations for its strategic plan.

The city held an online survey in September and October, asking people for suggestions to improve the market. It got 234 responses; about 78 per cent were in favour of a summer evening market, while 60 per cent were in favour of a midweek daytime market.

There are other midweek markets in the area, in St. Jacobs, Cambridge and Preston, but only one other evening market: the Hespeler market runs Friday evenings during growing season.

“I would definitely shop at the farmers’ market on a weekday, preferably evening when I am not home on weekends to go on a Saturday,” said one respondent. “Trying to make it a weekly habit to buy local from the farmers’ market (is) sometimes difficult with other activities if option to shop is only on one day.”

Respondents also raised the perennial complaint about a lack of parking. “Now that we aren’t within walking distance, we don’t go because there is nowhere to park and the traffic is horrendous,” wrote one.

Parking has improved with recent changes, and more people are walking or cycling to the market, Feere said.