Moncton’s largest craft show returns despite COVID-19 numbers

For many, Turner’s Christmas at the Coliseum is a holiday tradition.

Hundreds of makers, crafters and small businesses in one place have made for a perfect one-stop Christmas shopping venue.

That is, save for 2020, when the market was cancelled amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was okay,” says artisanal soap maker Kelli Young, who’s brought her “Soap Shack” to the show for close to 20 years.

“I was kind of happy we didn’t have one with the situation that we were going through at the time.”

This time last year there were 119 confirmed cases of COVID-19 provincewide.

Now, there are 295 cases in the Moncton region alone.

In the year since vaccines have started making the rounds and New Brunswick has shifted to a more regionalized approach to gathering restrictions, the Moncton region has seen many cases in the past few weeks amid high case counts and hospitalizations.

Health Minister Dorothy Shephard said Thursday a regionalized circuit breaker in that public health zone was not effective.

READ MORE: N.B. health minister doesn’t rule out further COVID-19 restrictions ahead of holiday

That circuit breaker was lifted a week before the craft show opened its doors.

Still, attendees and vendors alike faced mask and proof of vaccination requirements if they wanted to hit the show floor this weekend.

Seamstress Denise Richard, who’s sold dog apparel at the show for nine years, says returning this year was her motivation to get her shots.

“I got vaccinated right at the last minute,” Richards says.

Her booth, Le Woof, saw a steady stream of shoppers all weekend.

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Joe Savoie, producer of the craft show, says people just seem happy to be out of the house.

“Everybody on the floor from crafters to the show-goers, it’s all the same thing — kind of a sigh of relief, even though there are restrictions, still very happy to be here.”

Savoie says organizers kept an eye on COVID-19 cases in the area and across the province right up until opening day.

Organizers only made the call to put on this year’s show about a month ago.

“It comes down to cases, circuit breakers, lockdowns, a little bit of everything,” he says.

“Things went well, we got lucky. Circuit breakers were lifted, no lockdowns.

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“We were hoping for cases to go down a little bit more and we still are but everybody’s wearing their masks, everybody’s doing exactly what we’ve asked,” Savoie says.

He says close to 200 vendors came this year — there’s usually about 300.

READ MORE: Maritime craft vendors say market organizer held refunds for months

Young says things have been a little slower at her Soap Shack stall, but having leftover products from this year is not a big concern.

“It’s OK if you have a stockpile of soap because, actually, the older soap is, the better it gets.

“It’s like wine. When it’s aged it’s really, really nice,” she says.

While this year’s Christmas at the Coliseum has wrapped, you can find both the Soap Shack and Le Woof at the Moncton Farmer’s market every Saturday.