For Gold Coasters who would be much happier finding a vintage bargain than ‘The One’, the morning of Valentine’s Day would be much better spent at The Village Markets than eating breakfast in bed. 

Not that eating soggy weetbix in bed isn’t delightful.  But over 40 stalls of vintage and retro delights and locally designed treats are worth setting your alarm for.

You'll get the best of your Grandma's closet - minus the moth balls - plus the freshest local designs. Get along to The Village Markets on Sunday at Burleigh Heads State School Oval from 8am – 1pm.

myGC Merge magazine had a chat with the girls who invented TVM, Sarah Schoeller and Marissa Bowden, to find out how they did it.

How did The Village Markets start?
We worked together about a year and a half ago, we used to talk about shopping and the Bondi Markets and the Melbourne Markets and we were getting frustrated that there were no fashion markets on the Gold Coast.  So we thought rather than just whinge about it, we'd start one ourselves.  Knowing people that were designers, or that collected vintage clothing, we knew there was a demand for it.

Are The Village Markets modelled on something like the Bondi Markets?
Well we're more fashion and design focussed, as opposed to an 'arts and crafts' type of thing. I suppose we're fussier  in terms of our stall holders.  Instead of trying to get as many stalls as we possibly can fit onto the oval, we keep it quite specific in terms of the sort of things that people want to find at the markets we've created. So there's more emerging local designer labels and quality vintage and we also have a couple of designer jumble stalls.  Rather than having 30 thousand stalls, where every second stall might be ok, we believe we've got consistent quality.

What's the main focus of the markets?
It's really about promoting Gold Coast talent and creating a hub for creative people to meet. It's a cultural event for the Gold Coast and also a platform for talented designers to have somewhere to showcase their stuff.

The Village Markets started back in October, 2008 - how many stalls did you start with?
The first one we had nine stalls and it's been building steadily since then. Over Christmas we had more than 40 stalls, but average is around 25-30.

What sort of stuff can shoppers expect to find?
The majority are local designers, and quite a lot of jewellers - people that make their own jewellery. We do have people travelling from Brisbane and further south, the word is spreading. We have a lot of local stalls, but we're also starting to see a lot of people travelling. I think it's attractive because it's not an arts and craft markets.  A lot of the store holders are often surprised at how much they actually sell.  When they compare it to the arts and craft markets, they say it's unbelievable.  I think it's because the shoppers are there to buy fashion, they're coming with cash to shop.  It works well for the stall holders as well.  The shoppers sort of save up for a month and come to spend.

Who are some of the emerging designers we should be watching out for?
Debris Blanc, is a great clothing label with a vintage range, Time Machine Vintage.  All handmade jeans, t-shirts and dresses.  Then there's Jet Rock, and Deb Parkinson's a local kids wear designer who was recently showcased at fashion week.  She has some really gorgeous kids stuff. There are a couple of 17 year old twins that rework vintage clothes and they're just amazing. They're photographers, musicians and designers.  Their parents drop them off and they get to mingle with similar minded people.
 
Did TVM start as a hobby or was it a business venture?
Definitely a hobby, we both still work full time so it's sort of a side project for us.  If we could make a living out of it one day that'd be great.

Is that where Heart Marketing comes in?
I think Heart Marketing has been more about making our marketing skills to other businesses and helping the designers build their brands.  We've found the designers are really great at designing and getting their gear out there, but they often have trouble with business management or marketing themselves.

How has TVM changed in the past year?
We're a lot more organised now, and we've learnt the ins and outs of running a market. Also things like dealing with enquiries - we get a lot of heavy enquiries throughout the month and we've learnt to streamline our processes. Word of mouth has been our best marketing tool. We've launched an online store called the Hanging Space which essentially puts designers onto an international platform. We get the clothes from the designers then handle the whole transaction so they can concentrate on designing.

How many people come through the gates on market day?
Up to 1500. There're people coming all the way from Brisbane down to Byron.  People have come up from Melbourne to come to The Village Markets, they've heard about it somewhere and come up to check it out. We've found social networking to be a hugely valuable tool, for example if we need a musician or a band, we put it on Facebook or Myspace and get a lot of people putting their hand up.

What's the venue like?
Burleigh Heads State School has been really supportive. We originally approached Council and they knocked back the idea of the market because they'd introduced a new policy where they weren't permitting any new markets on the Coast until they'd reviewed their original policy.  So we approached the school and presented them with a business proposal and they were really keen. The  P & C has a BBQ each month which helps them out too.

What are the challenges involved?
It's a bit of a balancing act, because we both work full time and this is a side project for us.  Lucky we both have very understanding partners that are hugely supportive and don't mind our busy schedules. We spend a lot of nights up late, every day we're out working and every night we're up planning the markets and maintaining and promoting the online store.

What's involved administration wise?
Originally it was about the event planning and event management - having evacuation plans, parking plans and organising insurance and those sort of things - basically just initial housekeeping.  Corresponding with designers and stall holders each month would probably take up the most amount of time, getting everyone organised.  We do a monthly newsletter and all of those things are quite time consuming but we have our processes in place now.

So where do go to find new store holders, or do you wait for them to come to you?
We do a bit of advertising on Facebook around the Gold Coast and Brisbane looking for new designers, we find that works quite well for us.  We noticed we've been getting a lot of applications from Brisbane based designers cause they've heard about us. There's some really big labels like Sass & Bide and Collette Dinnigan who started at the markets, so that's a really big incentive for people that it really can happen.  Word of mouth is very powerful, a lot of stall holders have heard about our markets from other stall holders.  Whether they've been at another market and someone's said to them you should try The Village Markets.

What are the perks of the job?
I guess because we're there so early on market day, we get the opportunity to check out all the good stuff and buy what we like before the crowds get here. But we make sure there's always enough good stuff to go around.