Crowds of between four and seven thousand people attended the eleven week Commercial Street Night Market this year. (Alex Rawnley/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Ian Holmes

night market wrap

Commercial Street Night Market return proves to be a big hit

Sep 9, 2022 | 5:23 AM

NANAIMO — A popular summer night market couldn’t have come at a better time for businesses in the downtown core.

The 11-week Commercial Street Night Market concluded on Sep. 1, drawing an estimated 4,000 to 7,000 people every Thursday evening, according to organizer Kim Smythe.

The Greater Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce president said favourable weather and an influx of tourists helped put the popular market over the top.

“We’re doing something that everybody really wants, there’s a great huge demand for this thing. You could tell from opening night, people were like ‘oh finally it’s back,’ smiling ear to ear, so many happy people coming up to us.”

This year’s event marked its third offering after debuting to considerable fan-fare in 2018.

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Pandemic restrictions wiped the night market out in 2020 and 2021.

Smythe said this year’s market was pivotal for Commercial Street business operators to help recover from what’s been a challenging two-and-a-half years.

“I’ve heard from many merchants that they are looking at their best summer ever in some cases and certainly their best summer in three years,” he told NanaimoNewsNOW.

The sold out market featured about 140 vendors, food trucks and several entertainers filling a vehicle-less Commercial St.

While the summer market may be done for another year, a scaled down winter version of could transpire.

Smythe said discussions are underway to host a Christmas market over a weekend this December.

“People just love this activity, they love how we animate downtown with this kind of an event. It’s up to us to figure out a way to do more of them more frequently.”

NanaimoNewsNOW canvassed several Commercial Street businesses to gauge how the Commercial Street Night Market impacted downtown and their sales.

Unsurprisingly merchants were thrilled.

Flying Fish store manager Scott McLeod believed this year’s event was the most highly attended.

“All 11 weeks seemed to be hits…the energy was amazing, great interactions with customers, we had tourists, we had locals that hadn’t been downtown in quite some time.”

McLeod said the night market is a great way to introduce people to Nanaimo’s downtown who don’t normally spend time in the area.

“It was very exciting to see those people here and talk to those people about how great the night markets have been and how the summer was.”

McLeod said when the night market was held their daily sales volumes doubled.

Red Shelf Decor’s Dee Fontans said the market directly led to more traffic in the store and increased sales.

She said the event created a fun, vibrant atmosphere drawing wider amounts of local and out of town people to Commercial Street.

“Because if somebody lives in the north, Duncan or Ladysmith they wouldn’t necessarily come here just for an evening stroll, but because of the night market we had so many people,” Fontans said.

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ian@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @reporterholmes