Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas! Too soon? Ha!
We have been working for months on our 2026 and 2027 Holiday Market plans. It’s a busy, complex and sometimes tedious process - there are a lot of moving parts and things don’t always go as expected. But I’m happy to share that we have agreements with both Chattanooga and Knoxville, for which we feel very good about.
To spare you all of the sausage-making, I’m going to focus on the end result of our negotiations. My only comment regarding the process is that neither venue could offer our first set of requests, and that it took a lot of back and forth to find a schedule that would work well for both this year and next year. Having some continuity of our plans was a priority! Kudos to @Melissa for handling those tedious meetings, we’ve locked in a much better lineup than we originally felt was possible.
Dec 5-6 : Knoxville Holiday Market
Weekend One will be held Sat Dec 5-Sun Dec 6 in the newer, larger space of the main Knoxville Convention Center (I believe it is named Hall B). This is not the hall we were in last year, attached to the hotel - it’s directly across the street (where everyone went looking for us). There will be a Festival of Trees taking place in Hall A that same weekend, which raises funds for a local children’s hospital. [The World’s Fair Expo, our home in 2025, will be under renovation construction this year. I’m not sad - the new space is much nicer!]
Last year, our vendors reported sales of over $208k in Weekend One sales - Saturday actually had higher average vendor sales than Chattanooga did the same day/weekend the prior year. So we were very happy with the launch year response, and now it’s a matter of building momentum and consumer awareness.
The new venue hall for 2026/2027 is larger, so we will have additional booth capacity. It also has better facilities, including hot food concessions. Honestly, it’s just a much nicer space. Vendor load-in is handled underground in a well-designed facility, protected from rain.
Because it is a single weekend, travel expenses will be lower for everyone - as will the event setup fee. We anticipate that the average cost for a basic 10x10 booth with be in the $200 range, with premium sizes, locations and services available. All of our events carry a 10% sales commission, as we price our setup fees low to reduce your risk profile.
And in case you are wondering, we do hope to see Knoxville return to a multiple weekend event in future years – once we sellout and have improved consumer spending metrics with the single weekend, we will start to plan on expanding that calendar footprint. We are off to a fantastic start, but new events always need time to mature and develop.
Dec 12-13, 19-20 : Chattanooga Holiday Market
We are excited to be returning to Chattanooga in 2026 & 2027, with a modified schedule that addresses their event conflicts/needs. We have been able to secure the second and third weekends in the same footprint we utilized in 2024. Booth layouts may change somewhat, as we will be making a few changes to the event, but overall I’m really very happy about how things turned out.
We will also have a few more booth spaces moving forward – for a few reasons, we will not planning to bring our large stage during this 2026/2027 series. Costs have risen (naturally), and converting our stage area to vendor booths will help to manage our expenses.
Items of note expected for Chattanooga:
- booths will initially be offered as a package to double-weekend vendors. We anticipate that the average cost for a basic 10x10 booth for both weekends will be in the $400 range, with premium sizes, locations and services available. All of our events carry a 10% sales commission, as we price our setup fees low to reduce your risk profile.
- we plan to load in/out each weekend. we will not be remaining in place midweek. While that continues to be a benefit for Knoxville, if we expand back to a multi-weekend approach in future years, it is unlikely to ever return to Chattanooga due to other events using the facility midweek.
- CCC has the exact same policies as KCC in regards to concessions, sampling, electricity, parking, food onsite, etc. A lot of people seemed to forget this while in KCC, but nothing has changed - all convention centers generally operate under the same rulebook.
Bundled Discount
We will be working on the registration system in the next few weeks for the 2026 Holiday Markets (not available today - anticipate a follow-up announcement around April 1), but I do want to mention that we will be offering an $100 Early Bird Discount Bundle that will lower the combined setup costs for participating all three weekends by a hundred bucks, which can be used towards travel costs. This offer will be limited in duration, expiring June, 2026, and then normal rate pricing will go into effect.
For those not familiar with the Market, all of our events carry a 10% sales commission as we price our event setup fees low to reduce your risk profile and encourage participation.
That’s all there is to share at the moment - good news, and the last few details we needed in order to print our annual rack cards and other printed materials. Our full themed season schedule will be announced soon!
Thanks so much for all the hard work!
