With the Lismore Car Boot Market moving to a new location this month, how will the market experience change for stall holders and market goers? What if you want to hold a stall and what do the new covid regulations mean for you? And importantly, what happens if it rains?

Creating a market in a new location is like putting together a jigsaw, according to Lismore Car Boot Market manager Marny Bonner.

She has taken on the challenge of bringing the popular market back to life after a covid-induced break and said the move from underneath Lismore Shopping Square to Lismore Showgrounds is a massive challenge.

“We only made the decision this week to move once we got clarity that it would be too hard to keep holding it under the Square,” she said. “We put in a proposal to Lismore Council and the new location has been approved in principal for three months.”

Read more news: Lismore Car Boot Market moves to new location

Marny said one of the major factors in making the move to the Showground was the difficulty of having to fence in the undercover area of Lismore Shopping Square to adhere Covid safety regulations and control the numbers and flow of people entering and exiting the market.

Undercover or outdoors?

While the new location at the North Lismore Showground has an easier to manage entrance and some large undercover sheds, Marny said not all stall holders will be able to get a space undercover.

“There are two sheds and we will give priority to stall holders with products that won’t be good in the sun – like cakes, vinyl records or people who can’t manage putting up a gazebo,” she said.

“I will be sending out a survey soon to ascertain people’s needs. Many stall holders prefer to be in the sunshine and they set up in gazebos and do other markets.

Survey

“The survey will give me the jigsaw pieces I need to create the markets and then I will work to best prioritise and place everyone.

“It will take a great deal of work to reengineer the market into a new footprint.”

Marny said about 80% of Car Boot Market stall holders have permanent bookings and are used to the stability of arriving at the market knowing they have a pre-booked site, with no queueing at the gate.

In order to keep the first market flowing as smoothly as possibly while organisers iron out any kinks in the way it runs, Marny said she will be limiting the number of new stall holders until they work it out.

“We already have our staff working as parking marshals managing the off-street parking in a new setting – we can’t be trying to manage casuals on the morning too,” she said.

Contact

If you want to be a hold a stall or be part of the stall holder survey, make sure you contact the team soon by email [email protected] or phone 0437 995 859.

Social distancing

Marny and her team have also taken on the challenge of creating spaces for stall holders that follow Covid regulations of distance, as well as allowing for customer traffic flow.

“We need to allow more space between stalls for social distancing,” she said. “So, when we create a four by four metre stall space, if a marquee is three metres wide, there will be a half metre either side of it.

“Covid requirements also say the side walls of a marquee must be down.”

Marny said the sheds in the showground also present challenges because they have poles that she has to navigate when laying out stall spaces.

Unpredictable

The outdoor nature of the new market also means what the weather is doing could potentially change whether the market will be on or not.

“Now we’ve gone from being one of the most predictable markets on the North Coast to being just as affected by the rain and weather as all the other markets,” Marny said.

Stall holders

“All stall holders will be given an information sheet on how they need to comply with covid regulations and they will be sold a bottle of hand sanitiser if they haven’t brought one for their stall,” Marny said.

“Stall holders must also be mindful of maintain 1.5 metres between customers. They are encouraged to mark the ground in front of them at 1.5 metre distances.

“Stalls with queues need to be placed in a way that the serving side of stall is not projecting out too.

Community

“It’s a huge mission to get traders up and running and pull our community back together again – the hardest thing is not being able to hug each other.

“People who had neighbouring stalls for years are missing seeing each other.”

Manry said Robyn Kelly, the organiser of the Channon Craft Market, was the first to identify how huge the changes to markets were going to be.

“She called all the other market organisers up to form a collective and make sure we are on the same page,” she said. “It’s such a blessing and a wonderful aspect of our North Coast community.

“It’s one of the positives coming out of this. We’ve all already had three zoom meetings and a meeting, where public health officers from Byron and Lismore Councils attended to help guide us.

The future

This Sunday, August 2, Byron Bay Market is the first cab off the rank as our regional markets open up again.

Marny said if there are any Covid regulation or weather changes in the lead up to the Lismore Car Boot Market on August 16, she will update the Lismore Car Boot Market Facebook page. The market phone (0437 995 859) will also have a recorded message with information.