Parksville 2015 'Summer by the Sea Market' Opens

Parksville Market Opens For Another Season

The popular street market in Parksville opened for the season on June 16 and runs every Tuesday evening up to and including Sept. 1 this year.

The market boasts over 160 vendors offering up shoppers everything from soup to nuts (literally). The market is open from 6:00 - 9:00 pm and I observed a very steady crowd from the opening bell with lots of folk coming through before many vendors were even set up. By 7:00 pm there was a literal crowd of people out (mostly local) seeing what this year's vendors had to offer.

Food was the biggest hit!

About a dozen food trucks were present offering a variety of epicurean delights from pork kabobs to wood fired pizza and all were doing a brisk business from the opening bell until the market closed at 9:00 pm.

This is the third year the missus and me have checked out this market and we have always been impressed by the number and variety of vendors to the amazing crowds which pack out the streets. One merchant who was in the market last year, said that as happy as he was with opening night, it still wasn't tourist season, which I presume is likely more of a commercial success as wallets usually open wider when we are on vacation. That said there were few people seen that weren't happily munching on something from the food vendors.

The success of the Parksville Market seems to be something which keeps eluding Nanaimo and I hazard a guess that our aversion to food trucks might have something to do with it. For a comparison there is a Thursday night market in Maffeo Sutton Park, which hosts at most 25 vendors and is restricted to a couple of food vendors as dictated by City Parks and Rec department who also limit the number of vendors to 40. That's just the Nanaimo way?