Mynt Image are a long-established market organising company, running almost 150 different events each year throughout Southern England, in various central towns and city venues.
We spoke to the market organisers behind Mynt Image, George Upton and Paul Bristow, to get inside Mynt Image markets and find out more about their events, market history, and their market goals.
Check out our Q&A below…
How long have Mynt Image events been running?
Mynt Image have been running events now for 11 years. Before starting to run events, both of us (George and Paul) were successful stallholders for 4 years, which has enabled us to see both sides of the event organising business.
What makes your events unique?
Our approach is different and considered dynamic, in that we go out into the towns on the day of each event, to attract customers into the venue. Using word of mouth on the day of the event further creates large footfall, and gives our stallholders the best possible chance to create good sales.
Customers always notice when we are in town – they can’t miss us with our street presence, including arrow spinning!
Tell us more about your latest event…
Lyndhurst Craft and Gift Market
One of our newest venues is the Lyndhurst Craft and Gift Market, held at Lyndhurst Community Centre, which we first started to use in 2021. Click here to see when the Lyndhurst market is next on.
The Community Centre location had always been in our sights, but there were few opportunities for us to use it prior to the Covid lockdowns. Since we set up the Lyndhurst market, the event has rapidly become a favourite of ours, with free parking for stallholders, free entry for customers, and a delightfully spacious hall.
We have found this to be the perfect location to operate events lasting several days, something we will be focussing on at Lyndhurst in 2024, with many 2-4 day events.
The town of Lyndhurst itself is always busy with tourists looking for somewhere to visit for their gifts and souvenirs from March to October, so is lovely to visit in summer.
What’s your favourite event to date?
Guildford Craft and Gift Market
The Guildhall in Guildford has always been one of our favourite event locations. A 16th century Grade 1 listed building, right on the High Street, the building offers a unique period surrounding for a quality event.
The footfall, being in the centre of the City’s shopping street, is always good, as both local people, hordes of town visitors and a good number of students visit the event. We’ve even had to odd celebrity shopper over the years!
There are new and old faces to see at this market, but some of the stallholders who sell with us have been at this location for almost 10 years, and it is lovely to have had stallholders with us for so long.
Click here to see when it’s next on.
Why should people visit your events?
We don’t charge an entry fee for any of our markets, and we specialise in running indoor events from town centre locations, so there are plenty of chances to catch our markets and they’re easy to visit!
In 2023, we are running 127 different events from 18 different locations, rising to almost 150 in 2024. Our events run at each location between 4 and 20+ times each year.
Since our inception in 2012, we have always aimed to add at least one new venue each year, and are always looking for new locations which would suit our style.
We also find that tourists love a Craft and Gift Market, and last year we saw that they were not only buying souvenirs for themselves to take home, but also buying Christmas presents in summer, for later in the year. The current economy seems to see people spreading out such costs over the year, meaning that they prepare, budget and spend earlier.
In 2024 we will be adding Wallingford in Oxfordshire to our catalogue of events, due to the strong demand we have for an Oxfordshire event, as well as increasing the number of events in Lewes and Chichester. There is so much demand from stallholders looking for quality events on a regular basis in the South of England – and we can’t wait to help them!
We hope you’ve enjoyed seeing inside Mynt Image markets! Click here to view all of their events on Pedddle.
If you like to visit the event organiser’s website to find out more about them, click here.