Pulling off a Wimberley Market Days

Market Days in Wimberley is quite a challenge.

The numbers tell the story:

— 480 vendors

— 18 acres of shopping and parking space

— Up to 10,000 shoppers on a good day

In other words, it takes quite an effort to pull off the once-a-month shopping extravaganza. And, John Stark is in the middle of it.

John is the building and facilities manager as well as the assistant Market Days manager. The Wimberley Lions Club sponsors the event. The club has about 175 members and it takes more than 100 volunteers to make Market Days happen. Many of the volunteers are from the Lions Club, but other community members chip in, as well as high school students.

The proceeds from Market Days is distributed to local non-profits, animal-rescue organizations, scholarships, student exchange programs and a variety of other worthwhile efforts. According to the club’s website, more than $155,000 was given to local groups in 2017 — and most of that money was generated at Market Days.

Market Days started in the late 60’s in the Wimberley Square. It moved to its current location on FM 2325 in the 1970s. It has grown over the years.

Bringing it all together

Market Days is held the first Saturday of every month (except January and February). The crowds start entering at 7 a.m. With almost 500 booths lining the streets of Market Days, the selection of goods available is seemingly endless — from pottery to peppercorns, from birdhouses to barbecue sauce, from pain-relief cream to custom furniture.

John, who has been the building and facilities manager for 10 years, says six or seven days before the actual event the work kicks into high gear.

“The mad rush is the week before Market Days. We have the food come in. We have the ice come in. We have volunteers that help us with that. It’s a pretty cool job,” he adds with a grin.

The trick is keeping the grounds in shape. It’s a constant battle with the elements. The club employs a handful of part-time workers to keep up with maintenance. Electrical problems are among the biggest complaint from vendors. There’s is a relatively small amount of power assigned to each booth so, for example, if a vendor decides to plug in a small air conditioning unit it’s likely to trip the breaker and knock out power to everyone around them.

The grounds have to be leveled out after a big storm. “Obviously, this place wasn’t engineered for that (to handle water runoff efficiently),” says John, who devotes about 20 hours a month to Market Days.

Because Market Days is located in a wooded area, raccoon removal is a high priority. “We have had vendors show up, open their booths and find a mother raccoon with her babies nesting in packing material. We don’t kill them, we just move them away from here,” says John. “And hope they don’t come back.”

Following the rules

There are 10 Lions Club “ambassadors” each assigned with about 40-50 vendors to oversee. It’s the ambassador’s job to make sure each booth has a fire extinguisher and follow the rules of electrical usage.

“We encourage people to put the fire extinguisher at the front of the booth,” explains John. “We asked one vendor to get his fire extinguisher and he had to go in back and rummage around for 10 minutes to find it. Obviously, that wouldn’t do much good during a fire.”

The restrooms and concession stands need upkeep. “It’s amazing that for something that’s only used one day a month, it all works pretty well,” says John. “We try to stay on top of it.”

The biggest revenue producers are, in order, vendor payments, concessions and parking.

Each seller pays the Lions Club $600 a year which covers things like upkeep, electricity, trash collection, and restroom supplies.

The ambassadors make sure the booths are up to standards. “We have had conversations with vendors about the condition of the booths and try to put them in touch with contractors who can help solve their problems,” says John. “There was a lady who was probably about 85 and just couldn’t handle the improvements physically or financially, so we helped her out.”

Major construction or structural changes need to go through the city permitting process.

Most of the customers enter Market Days through Gates 1 and 2 because those gates are the closest to major parking lots. The Gate 4 parking lot with the Hilltop Ice House concession stand, has live music, a wine and beer bar and an ATM machine, is designed to get folks over to the vendors near gate 3. “Sometimes when traffic is backed up we’ll have a Lion (club member) out on the road directing people into Gate 4,” says John.

Location location location

John credits about 80 percent of the success of a particular booth to its location. About 10 percent of the booths are sold during the course of the year.

Market Days are pretty calm with most of the conflicts developing when one vendor intrudes into the space of another.

Surprisingly, considering the somewhat isolated location of Market Days, theft has never been a problem and there have been just a few minor instances of vandalism.

A week before Market Days, local groups gather there for a cleanup day. A couple days before the main event, 90 trash cans are distributed around the grounds. The cans and the large trash compactor cost the club about $1,000 a month, John estimates.

The wi-fi can be pretty spotty within the Market Days area. The vendors don’t like it because it sometimes makes taking credit cards and making a sale a problem. Customers don’t like it because, these days, who carries cash?

“We have someone working on that constantly,” says John. “The problem is all these tin buildings and tall trees.”

Market Days is known for its food. Barbecue is the biggest seller, followed by beer and wine. A club member who spent a career in food service helped design the menu that includes the usual burgers and hot dogs as well as an Asian chicken bowl, Greek salad and chicken fajita tacos.

The volunteers and members of the Lions Club make Market Days special and Markets Days is one of the things that make Wimberley special.