Summer in Park City is about to get silly. The Park Silly Sunday Market, the open-air street fair, will kick off this season on June 7 with nearly 200 vendors on lower Main Street, said Director of Operations Michelle McDonald.  “We opened applications in December,” she said. “We get s tarted early, and it’s still happening now.” An array of entrepreneurs who specialise in food, jewelry, apparel and art and other creative business ideas will rotate in and out of the market, which will run throughout the summer, rain or shine, McDonald said. (See below for schedule.)  “We usually start (accepting) food vendors and jewelers,” she said. “We have specific jury processes for them because food requires a little more time as far as getting permits on their end.” Freshies Lobster, Red Bicycle Breadworks and 11 Hauz Authentic Jamaican Restaurant, are a few of the local eateries that got their start at Park Silly, as well as Rancho Luna Lobos, which specializes in outdoor dog sledding and tours. One of the vendors this year is Izlo Apparel, founded by Izzy Worthington, who happens to be the daughter of two-time Olympic Freestyle Skier and World Championship Gold Medalist Trace Worthington and Trisha Worthington, U.S. Ski Snowboard’s chief revenue philanthropy officer and founding executive director of the Park City Community Foundation, said Kate McChesney, Park Silly Sunday Market executive director. “Izzy will sew every day and make custom stuff at the market,” she said. “It’s exciting to have a local big name.” In addition the market will also spotlight youth vendors, McDonald said. “Sydney Seaside Creations, who does jewelry and ceramics, will return, and one of the new vendors is Ophelia Owens Art, a high school student who does portraiture and oil paintings,” she said. “She’ll do drawings of you on the spot.” Other youth vendors include High-Air Education, run by 15-year-old Rachel Riff, who shares her appreciation for the outdoors, McDonald said.  Live music in various forms is one of the highlights of the Park City Sunday Market. Credit: Park Record file photo by Tanzi Propst “Her work, which is like abstract mountain designs, will be on T-shirts,” she said. Another youth-run art vendor is Pet Portraits. “That is run by two high school kids who want to raise money for programs they love, like Rancho Luna Lobos, who, coincidentally, participated in Park Silly in the past,” McDonald said. “Pet Portraits do bracelets, dog-themed postcards and on-the-go, five-minute, $5 portraits of you and your pet.” In addition to vendors, Park Silly Sunday Market includes live music. This year’s lineup includes Silver Kind Rocking Company and Broken Compass Bluegrass, who will play Sunday, as well as Brazuca Band, J Law Warhorse and Deeman3, to name a few. “We also have youth musicians,” McChesney said. Liam Given, Danny Noland, Kay and Elle, Augie and Olivia DePaul, the Young Family, the Smith Family, Lyra Hilton, Atlas Hutchins and the Youngbusk Brass Band, are all musicians that range in age from preteen to 18, she said. Although this Sunday’s market is booked up, McDonald is counting vendor spaces to see if there are potential openings. “If we’re really full, I’ll start sharing the bad news to people, which is always a bummer,” she said. “But if we’re not, we do keep a waitlist because there are always changes. So, if there are holes here and there, we go down the waitlist, and sometimes they open the night before. Sometimes they open two weeks before.” The market always reserves free spaces for local nonprofits, McDonald said.  “This season we’ll have Park City Rapid Transit, Waste Less Solutions, Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History, and Nuzzles Co to name a few,” she said. For every Park Silly Sunday date, McChesney and her crew are out on Main Street at 6 a.m., when the street closes to public vehicles, according to McDonald. “That’s also when the police and I look to see if anyone parked on the street overnight and whether we need to get those cars towed,” she said. “You feel bad because, if there are cars there, you assume people made good choices after too many cocktails the night before and decided to get rides home.” Still, McDonald and McChesney do their due diligence. “We will take about two hours to find car owners before we actually tow the cars,” McChesney said. Plus, the cars aren’t towed too far away, McDonald said. “Park City is pretty good at that,” she said. “They tow the car to the Flag Pole lot (on Swede Alley) if they don’t get a hold of anybody — assuming there is no issue with the vehicle,” she said. Once the street is cleared, Park Silly crews start setting up tents, volunteer stations and the music stage before the vendors arrive, McDonald said. “Vendor load in starts at 7 a.m., and vendors can arrive anywhere between then and 9 a.m.,” she said. “I have a meet-and-greet on 7th Street and that’s when I tell people where they are heading and give them some guidance on how to find their space.”  Lower Main Street closes to vendor vehicle access at 9 a.m., according to McDonald. “Vendors need to get their vehicles off the street by then because we open at 10 a.m.,” she said. “So if they arrive earlier, they have more time to get their things squared away. Some people need only 10 minutes to unload and some people need an hour. It’s a lot of moving parts, and it’s easy to get in each others’ way, but it works out.” Organizing each market takes a checklist, McChesney said. “Over the years, I was kind of always nervous about something happening to me or Michelle, so it was important that we had a list,” she said. The list includes big chores such as maintaining the market’s own moving trucks that help load in and load out tents and kiosks, to small tasks such as ordering new tables and tents, McChesney said. “Things break over time, and I can’t replace them during the season, so I’ll order things before the beginning of the next season,” she said. The list also helps McChesney remember to secure the live musicians through Mountain Town Music, order Red Vines licorice and pasta straws for the bar and keep a supply of paper cups for water. “My checklist tells me when to order, and I also have popups in my calendar that remind me about our supplemental plan that we coordinate with the city,” she said. “‘Supplemental plan’ are large words for permits, and I am reminded when they need to be submitted. We need a fire permit, a special-event permit, our DABS (Department of Alcoholic Beverage Service) permits and local consent permits.”  McChesney and McDonald said going through that checklist and dealing with each step is worth the effort, especially when they see how much the market inspires the youth vendors. “It’s about watching those kids try new things and give things a go in the business world,” McDonald said. “Some of them just crush it and can coach up the adult vendor next to them, sharing ideas about how to tweak up the booth setup.” As with years in the past, McChesney encourages Park Silly Sunday Market attendees to bus, walk or bike to Main Street. “We have a free bike valet hosted by the Park City High School Bike Team,” she said. “Senior Jackson Lontz is our bike valet manager, who also does Fourth of July and Miners Day.” McDonald praised Lontz for his organizational and communication skills.  “He volunteered as part of the Park City High School football team to set up (the Running With Ed fundraiser), and when we were done, he asked if we had any work he could do at Park Silly,” she said. “He was only 15 at that time and just ran with it.” The market also welcomes well-behaved pets on one condition, McChesney said. “We want to advise owners not to bring them on hot days because the street can be too hot for their little paws,” she said.  Although the market is nearly ready to open Sunday, McChesney and McDonald will always welcome volunteers. “Most of the positions are seated and in the shade, and they all get free swag and lunch tickets,” McChesney said. Volunteers can sign up at parksillysundaymarket.com/apply/volunteers. Park Silly Sunday Market When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. June 7, 14, 21 and 28;July 12 and 19; Aug. 30 and Sept. 6, 13, 20 and 27 Cost: Free Web: parksillysundaymarket.com The post Open-air market is a silly way to spend Sundays in Park City appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less