Vendors report warm sales during cold holiday weekend at 43rd annual Juneau Public Market
- Mark Sabbatini
- 8 hours ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 6 hours ago
Veteran participants say results similar to or better than recent years despite initial economic concerns, mirroring Black Friday reports from retailers nationwide
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
Jacqueline Tingey says she had concerns about economic gloom and high gold prices forcing her to charge more for some of the jewelry she makes, but the three days she spent as a vendor at the Juneau Public Market got the holiday season off to a jolly start.
"It seems like every year has gotten better and better, and this year is either going to be better or equal to last year," she said as the crowd of shoppers started thinning out toward the end of the 43th annual market on Sunday afternoon. "I wasn't sure. I thought maybe it would be worse because of the way the economy has been."
Tingey, a vendor at the public market at Centennial Hall since 2017, said it’s her biggest single sales event of the year since most of her sales the rest of the time are through local shops. Other longtime merchants at the market reported similar results, which were generally in line with Black Friday sales figures nationwide that were strong — but with some qualifiers such as higher prices for goods limiting profits.
"My brother and his family live here, so they told me about the market and that I should do well here, and I've done well here every year since the last five years," said Deborah Winkelman, a Mat-Su resident and manager of Deb's Upcycled Designs, which sells bicycle saddle bags, hip packs and other items made from recycled bicycle inner-tubes and bicycle chain-links.
"Last year was one of my worst years because it was a snowstorm and then there was a fire drill at the same time," she said. "And so when everybody went out for the fire drill in the snowstorm they just left and they never came back."
This year the first real snowstorm of the season made the roads difficult to navigate on Sunday — and a broken heating system made the hallway at Centennial Hall somewhat chilly— but Winkelman said it didn’t seem to affect the flow of shoppers stopping by her booth. She said she was nearly sold out of her most popular items, so she’ll rush home to make more before going to her next holiday market event.
"What I do is I try to sew for about two months to stock up for my holiday events and then I do six weekends in a row," she said. "So this is my fourth event for the holiday season. And then I’ve got two more, one more in Anchorage and one in Fairbanks."
The number of people paying $10 for a three-day pass to the Centennial Hall portion of the market (access to vendors at the adjacent Juneau Arts and Culture Center is free) is proprietary, but "we had a record-breaking weekend," Peter Metcalfe, the market’s organizer since its inception, wrote in an email Monday.
"I was confident the weather would be fairly ideal for our event so we pumped up the volume on advertising, entertainment and hired more than enough help," he wrote.
Of the estimated 175 vendors at this year’s market, a slight majority were local businesses and individuals, according to Metcalfe.
"About 46% were from outside of Juneau: Southeast, the rest of Alaska, and the lower 48," he wrote. "We don't get any (anymore) from Canada due to border issues."
A total of 46 new vendors were at this year’s market, consistent with the 25% to 30% of new participants each year, Metcalfe noted.
Two first-time vendors sharing a merchant space near an entrance of Centennial Hall were Haines residents Samatha Spotel, who was selling healing and other products made from tallow, and Jaiden Davis, selling items such as jewelry made from antlers. Spotel said she traditionally attends a holiday market in Arizona during the long weekend after Thanksgiving, but a cancellation by another merchant at the Juneau market allowed her to try seasonal sales closer to home.
"I think people appreciate a natural product more in this area," she said when asked to compare sales this weekend to how she has fared in Arizona.
A newcomer to the market — and to making and selling merchandise — was Antonia Lasinski, an employee at the Johnson Youth Center who was selling a variety of handmade wood building blocks, dollhouse furnishings, farm animals, dinosaurs and other items. She said she started woodworking as a hobby less than a year ago.
"I have four little kids and I wanted them to have cool wooden toys, and I thought ‘How cool would it be if I made them," she said. That led to her making them as presents for friends’ kids and ultimately to taking a couple of weeks off work to make items to sell at the public market.
"I've been wanting to do a market, and I knew if I signed up for the public market I wouldn't back out, and it would either go really well or really poorly," she said. "And it went really well."
The volume of visitors was lower — but so was the fee for vendor space — at the JACC. Robyn Chartrand has been a vendor at both venues, selling fused glass products such as platters and bowls for a decade at Centennial Hall before shifting to smaller items such as jewelry at the JACC the past few years. She said she’s been able to make a profit at both locations and turnout at the JACC is improving over time.
"It's less, but it's gotten much better," she said. "Peter has done a really good job on the marketing, getting people over to the JACC…I think people are really looking local. They're trying to support local businesses."
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
