23/01/2022
Happy Birthday 🥳
On This Day – 22nd January (1972) – First Salamamca Market was held 🎨🖼🍒☕
Happy 50th birthday Salamanca Market 🎉
50 years ago today, the very first market stall was held at Salamanca Place in Hobart.
The idea for a market came from the National Council of Women Tasmania (NCWT). A suggestion was formally made by the President, Mrs Clemente, to her husband Hobart Alderman Dr. John Clemente who was a strong advocate within the council and chaired the Salamanca Place market sub-committee. The council agreed to a trial and on Saturday 22nd January the first market was held with just 12 stalls based at the silo’s end of Salamanca – more than 50,000 people turned out! The market was an instant success and two days late Dr. Clemente said it contained, “a lot of colour, a lot of people, a lot of information, young and old, tourists and locals.”
Proving popular with the public, it was decided to run the market as a weekly event over the summer months. It ran between December and Easter for three years and was so successful it was then copied by the Tasmanian Puppet Theatre who introduced a winter market as well. The two markets ran separately until the Hobart City Council took over the winter market in 1987 and combined the two. Within 20 years the market grew to over 150 stalls attracting between 10,000 and 12,000 people each week.
Today Tasmania’s own market is a selection of your favourite Salamanca Market stallholders (artisans, designers and producers) and is running each Saturday from 8:30am to 3:00pm.
To watch a 2 minute video of the first Salamanca Market click on the link below 👇
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=273173224041886
Question – what are your favourite memories and what do you like most about Salamanca Market?