The team behind the popular ‘Harrogate Virtual Christmas Market’ are back with four more fairs set to take place throughout 2021.

The ‘Harrogate Virtual Artisan Market’ will take place in Spring, Summer, Autumn, and around Christmas, providing an online marketplace for local small businesses in Harrogate, Knaresborough, Ripon and surrounding villages to showcase their products or gifts for sale.

Tiffany Snowden, one of the group’s founders, told Nick Hancock on the Your Harrogate Podcast:

“We’re going to have four different fairs this year: a Spring fair, a summer market, an Autumn market getting a bit Halloweeny and then Christmas 2021.

“Luckily lots of people have decided to continue from the Christmas Market, so there’s lots of familiar faces. It’s just so nice to keep it going.”

Following on from the success of the Virtual Christmas Market, Tiffany spoke of her excitement to continue the group when social distancing guidelines are lifted and it’s safe to meet in person:

“Hopefully we’ll be able to start doing markets in person again – we’ve already got such a lovely little community, it’d be lovely to carry it forward.”

Speaking on the group’s Facebook page, which now contains over 7,000 people, Tiffany Snowden wrote:

“Given the huge success of the Harrogate Virtual Christmas Market, we are now open for expressions of interest to hold a stall in 2021 when we will be running a Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Christmas market.

“The same rules apply as before – this is a curated market and just like any in-person market, we have a limit on how many stalls of each type/product/service we can have. As such, please do not take it personally if we do not have space for you this time around as of course, we want as many people who can to take part but only if your business is underrepresented in our existing stallholders or is generally a good fit.”

In the interest of supporting local, the group are only allowing businesses to hold stalls for 2021 if they are both local (Harrogate/Skipton/Ilkley/Ripon/Pateley Bridge/Masham) and not a representative of a franchise (Body Shop/Avon etc.).

Tiffany has asked that any interested businesses should send her a private message via Facebook, where she will be working on a first come, first served basis.

Find the group on Facebook here.

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