For the last 16 summers, Main Street has transformed into an open-air bazar and market which has attracted more than 2.5 million people. This Sunday, the market will celebrate its 17th season with close to 200 vendors and a few changes to the landscape.
Michelle McDonald is the director of operations for Park Silly Sunday Market. She said the biggest change is the Fifth Street portion near the post office.
“We have about 20 booths up there next to the post office that we typically refer to as our farmers market section,” McDonald said. “That's where farmers and gourmet food-type vendors are normally assigned space. So, we're not activating that portion of this show. So those vendors now will be down in the mix on lower Main Street.”
McDonald explained that the farmers market booths will still be included, however, hard decisions will have to be made.
“We have the challenge of choosing a gourmet food vendor, or certain gourmet food vendors, over certain artists or small businesses,” she said. “So that's just now part of the jury process. There are no extra spaces to be made down there. We just have to kind of choose how we do our vendor selection.”
McDonald said the Fifth Street decision happened because the city reduced the market’s days from 14 to 11, based on a community survey that was conducted last year. That reduction in days, according to McDonald, reduced their operating budget just shy of 25%.
“Our decision was that we needed to not activate Fifth Street separately because we have to do recycling up there. We need to do trash up there,” she said. “We have to have an info person all day, we have to have a load-in, a load-out person and we program music. So, by moving that section into the main, it kind of helps offset some of that loss.”
Despite the changes afoot, McDonald remained optimistic about opening day and beyond.
“We've got 17 years of learning and adjusting to kind of figure out the best ways to dial it in so we're still excited,” McDonald said. “We have a sellout weekend this weekend, actually, all of June and most of July already totally sold out. And we're figuring out the pieces for the tail end. We have one of Park City's favorite bands, Steve Bosco, on Sunday. So, a nice way to ease into the summertime, if you ask me.”
Jenny Diersen is special events director for Park City. She said parking at China Bridge for the market is $8 per hour and she highly encouraged taking transit or riding a bike.
“Also new this year, it'll be running from Richardson Flat,” she said. “That service will be from 6:30 in the morning, I believe, until 11:30 p.m. I could have those times off just slightly. But it would be best to take the silver, yellow or the red if you're planning on attending the Silly Market via transit.”
Diersen said employees should park in the Sandridge lots, North Marsac Gateway or Flagpole lot on Swede Alley.
