Preparations for the Village Green Flea Market, a non-ticketed free-access Festival event, have been intense.
Preparations for the Village Green Flea Market, a non-ticketed free-access Festival event, have been intense.
“With more than 400 vendors who operate during the Festival at the Village Green Fair and in informal trading zones during the Festival, the Village Green Fair is a year-round operation,” Festival Media Representative Gilly Hemphill said. “It takes a full year to plan and execute an event of this nature and size.”
The pressure, planning, and execution of this large market allows traders and artists form all over the world to share their work with buyers who may want to take a break from the shows and presentations at the Festival. Yet what makes the Village Green Fair so special is that it aims to be a market that sells crafts and curios that are artistically sophisticated, well branded and which significantly reflect the standard of art craft in South Africa, according to Hemphill.
“The Village Green Markets adds vitality, colour and excitement to the Festival,” Hemphill said. “It offers festival visitors a reprieve from a hectic schedule of high-quality theatre, music, dance and other events, to relax among the crowds.” Hemphill said organisers of this fair recognised that craft art formed an important aspect of the rural economy.
“In a city with an enormous amount of unemployment, the Village Green Fair provides economic opportunity, by bringing visitors to the city,” Hemphill said. “For others, it also means acquiring new skills, which can be used to sustain themselves under difficult circumstances.”
Starting in 1989 at Fiddlers Green, and then relocating to its current place at the Rhodes Field, in 2009, the Village Green Market is abuzz with excitement as the Festival gets under way.
