Estimated 3,000 shop the 175 suppliers at Friday and Saturday’s Merry Market at city’s convention center
Published 1:02 pm Sunday, April 2, 2023
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A female tries out a stetson at the Rancher’s Daughter cubicle at the Merry Market on Saturday. (Jan Griffey | The Natchez Democrat)
Popular Natchez professional photographer John Larson offers his art work Saturday at the Merry Market. Many were happy to see Larson out and about after a health scare late last year. (Jan Griffey | The Natchez Democrat)
Merry Market goers pick up a snow cone from Homochitto Cafe McCall Creek supplier truck. (Jan Griffey | The Natchez Democrat)
Children and teenagers take pleasure in managing the snakes and other animals at the Fuzzy Bottoms Petting Zoo at the Merry Market on Saturday. (Jan Griffey | The Natchez Democrat)
Natchez Attorney Tim Blalock takes a picture of kids cuddling the goats and bunnies at the Fuzzy Bottoms Petting Zoo Saturday. (Jan Griffey | The Natchez Democrat)
This girl family pets a Ball Python at the petting zoo Saturday. (Jan Griffey | The Natchez Democrat)
NATCHEZ — Andrea Bradford of Natchez sat at a table in the lobby of the Natchez Convention Center and took in all the suppliers and buyers on Saturday.
The Merry Market, which is now in its 5th year and takes place numerous times each year, has actually grown to hosting on Friday and Saturday roughly 175 suppliers. Coming from all over the southwest, they covered almost every inch of Convention Center property, consisting of the primary flooring, upstairs and exterior in the car park.
“I have always gone to the Mistletoe Marketplace,” Bradford said about the popular yearly undertaking of the Junior League of Jackson. “About five years ago, I was talking to some friends about how Natchez a market like the one in Jackson.”
Bradford and others went to work which very first market had 46 suppliers and Merry Market has actually grown bigger each time they’ve had one.
Bradford approximated roughly 3,000 individuals had actually pertained to the convention center Friday and Saturday to search suppliers’ product.
Admission is complimentary for a factor, she said.
“We want vendors to have as much opportunity as possible to sell their goods.”
Friday and Saturday’s market had whatever possible, from kids’s clothes to grownups, stetson and other western wear to fashion jewelry of all kinds, arts, crafts and food galore.
“The city has told us we can expand to the street behind the convention center, and we hope the convention center itself will expand and we will have more room under roof,” Bradford said. “There are so many more things going on in Natchez now and the more the better. We want to grow and succeed.”
A popular part of Saturday’s Merry Market was the Fuzzy Bottoms Petting Zoo from Roxie. Bunnies, a tortoise, bunnies, donkeys, mini horses, goats, a tortoise and snakes thrills lots of kids who got to hold and animal the animals.
Natchez Attorney Tim Blalock was at the petting zoo with a variety of his 6 kids. His child, Adeline, held a Ball Python, an animal she recognizes with due to the fact that the family has one at home.
“We have just about every animal they have here,” Blalock said.
