It’s an exciting time in the Love Your Local Market office, with so many stories of what markets and traders have planned to celebrate Market Month in May.
If you are still looking for inspiration for your events next month, you could do no better than to look at the ideas that came from Warrington Market last year, winners of the Best Love Your Local Market event in the Great British Market Awards for a second time.
Warrington’s objectives included making the public aware the market was still open for business, amidst a huge redevelopment programme but also included attracting a new generation of shoppers and traders to the town centre location.
This was largely achieved by hosting a Comic Con and you will see from the picture was a hugely successful day…..but it didn’t stop there, with the market team also organising a Food Festival, guided history walks, 1920’s karaoke, mix and mingle entertainers such as Titan the Robot who also drew the crowds, as well as traders putting on special promotions to tie in with the Love Your Local Market theme.
We hope by now that some of you are also looking to encourage more young people to our markets. With 25 Teenage Market locations now across the country, we know they are gaining in popularity and have teamed up with the NMTF for young traders participating in LYLM events to be put forward, to represent their town or region at the National Youth Market in September. To find out how your town can benefit from hosting a youth market, head over to our website where you can find out more on the competition.
It is vitally important to raise awareness of our nations markets and we hope you will join us on social media to support this year’s campaign, by telling us what you are doing during market month by including our annual hashtag in your Twitter, Facebook and Instagram posts. We are of course using #LYLM2016 to collate your activity but also ask that you write to your MP’s, chambers of trade, customers, market operators and traders and ask them to PLEDGE their support for markets in 2016. Include #LYLMPledge for anything from introducing free parking on market day, investment in your market, committing to spending £5 a week down at the market or delivering the most fantastic products and customer service.
We are joined for the second year by the national LYLM celebrations that are launching on May 1st at the Élysée Palace in Paris. Having started Love Your Local Market in the UK, we hope that you will all come together to shout about markets in May, so we can keep the momentum up throughout the year – getting more people visiting, shopping and loving their local market.
If you haven’t yet registered for #LYLM2016 – please don’t delay.
Visit www.loveyourlocalmarket.gb.com
LYLM Case Studies: http://bit.ly/ lylmcasestudies
LYLM Youth Market Competition: http:// bit.ly/lylmyouthmarket