How to Host a Vegan Pop-Up Market in YOUR Community

In October of 2012, when we were still living in New York, we visited Colorado for the weekend to find a place to live. It was our second stay at a hotel in Colorado Springs and, after the first trip, I decided I should visit Nooch Vegan Market in Denver before driving down. I wanted lots of vegan food and treats for the weekend.

I introduced myself to one of the co-owners of Nooch, Joshua Allen LaBure, and told him that I planned to start a vegan consulting and coaching business in the Springs and that as part of my outreach I would love to offer various “pop-up” activities. I asked if he would consider vending at a vegan pop-up market. He said yes and a year later we did just that.

I did start my coaching practice and corporate consulting business and set up a dedicated office at a local coworking space. And, more importantly, I got very involved with the local Meetup, the Colorado Springs Vegan & Vegetarian Group. (I actually joined the group six months before I even moved, because I wanted to get to know my fellow vegan and veg community.) With a base of nearly 600 people in the group, it should come as no surprise that their interest in the pop-up was great.

I confirmed a date with Josh at Nooch – our anchor vendor – and started planning from there. I should note that we orginially planned this pop-up for September but Josh broke his leg. While he graciously said he would wait until the next one I made it very clear that for our first pop-up to succeed I needed his very popular vegan market to draw a crowd. So we changed the date. The other vendors – Colorado Springs-based businesses and entrepreneurs who focused on vegan products and services and who I met through serious networking – were willing to wait, too.

Our vendors included:

• Nooch Vegan Market
• Roll-Some (No site – YET – Roll-Some is a vegan duo, Kim and Jason, who rocked the house with their vegan sushi)
• Tabor Mountain Bakehouse
• Lambert’s  Tofu Company
• Simple Body
• Vegan Life Colorado
• Go Vegan with JL (pouring The Vegan Vine wine to benefit Vegan Life Colorado)

I offered up the main room of my communal office space for the market because I had used it before and knew it could accommodate the number of vendors and the anticipated crowd. The space has tables, chairs, electricity, WiFi, restrooms and a sink. And there was no cost (well, I have access to the space as part of my paid membership, so it was my donation to the event).

We promoted the market as an event on our Meetup (we posted it on several other local vegan and animal rights Meetup groups, as well) and we placed an ad in the local indy paper.

Nooch and the other vendors shared event details with their followers on Facebook and Twitter.

We had over 100 people visit our very first Vegan Pop-Up Market in Colorado Springs!

Thanks to Kristi Hayes of Tabor Mountain Bakehouse for several of these photos

The market was a huge success. The shoppers loved it (and asked if we would do a monthly market…err, not yet…smile!) and the vendors made enough in sales and/or promotion to make it worth their while and they all agreed to vend at our next market!

So, are your ready to do something similar?

How to Host a Vegan Pop-Up Market in YOUR Community

1. Network, network, network.
2. Connect with your local vegan community. If there’s a Meetup, that’s the perfect place to start (if there isn’t one, consider starting one!).
3. Connect with the most successful vegan business – or maker of a vegan product – that you know. You need an anchor vendor, someone who has a large following and can encourage shoppers to come to your market.
4. Then connect to the good people quietly doing wonderful vegan things in your community; this is a chance for them to shine and they have a following who may bring in shoppers. Turn to makers of vegan products (cupcakes, soap, crafts, etc.) and nonprofits working on behalf of animals or vegan advocacy. By reaching out to them you are providing a broader shopping and browsing experience for your participants, you are elevating the good work of fellow vegans, and you are educating the broader community by showing that there are plant-based services and products in their very own town, city or community.
5. Try to represent the span of veganism. Listen, we all love cupcakes and soy curls but it’s important to use this market as a tool for education and activism. Try to make sure your vendors represent food, clothing, health & beauty, and, equally (if not more) important, animal rights. It begs questions such as, “what makes lotion not vegan?” (animal testing and/or animal products) and “why isn’t all wine vegan?” (many wines are clarified using animal-derived substances). Your market is both a service to the vegan community – a place to shop 100% vegan – and it’s an opportunity to further educate them, and the broader community, on the wide variety of issues encompassed in veganism.
6. Require that all goods and services sold or promoted are vegan. While your vendors don’t have to be vegan, or have 100% vegan businesses, this is a great form of vegan activism! It demonstrates to business owners and entrepreneurs that there is a vegan demand and it ensures that your shoppers don’t have to repeatedly ask, “Is this vegan?” If it’s a vegan market; make sure everything is vegan!
7. Set realistic expectations – for yourself and your vendors. When we approached potential vendors we were honest. We had no idea how many people to expect but we promised to promote them on our Meetup and in advertising (display ad and press releases).
8. Find the right space, part one: No-cost or low-cost is optimal. If you’re using a planning committee see if someone is a member of a club, church or other organization that provides space to members. If not, find a local library or community center that my charge only a nominal fee and then ask the vendors to pitch in (they are making money at the market!).
9. Find the right space, part two: Size matters. Too little space and your vendors are cramped and people are walking all over each other. Too much space and the market doesn’t look successful. You want a location where the vendors have lots of room to work and sell and that shoppers feel like they are part of a bustling, vibrant vegan community, without getting trampled.
10. Learn, grow and schedule your next Vegan Pop-Up Market! With the rousing success we know that we want to host more markets – quarterly, for now – and we want a larger space to accommodate more vendors and add some entertainment (live music, for instance) to the overall experience.

Final notes:

• Be sure to have at least one vendor who is selling food – I’m talking a meal, not samples! Our vegan sushi vendors had a line out the door because a noon to 3pm market is going to bring in some hungry people.
• Several people requested to be vendors after the word got out. I thanked them and asked them to be patient and wait for the second market. We wanted complete control over the number of vendors and the space + flow for an anticipated crowd of 100 during our maiden voyage. Buzz and anticipation is a good thing and the result is that we will hold our next market in a bigger space and double the number of vendors!

Do you have questions about hosting a vegan market in your community? Ask in the comments!

Have you hosted a vegan market in your community? Share your tips in the comments!

Tags: vegan colorado springsvegan pop-upvegan pop-up market

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