This winter, as has happened nearly every year since 2005, the Downtown DC Holiday Market will bring dozens of stalls that offer artsy and craftsy items to F Street, Northwest, near the National Portrait Gallery. Two miles away, the DC Holiday Market will set up on 19th Street, Northwest, near Kramers bookstore and the Dupont Circle Hotel. The markets’ similar names hint at a bitter schism in the cinnamon-scented economy of the festive season.
So how did we get here? Last December, the Downtown DC BID, which co-produced the event, asked longtime organizer Diverse Markets Management to compete for the right to produce it this year. In April, the BID told Michael Berman, who runs the DC-based Diverse Markets Management, that its application wouldn’t move forward. Two months later, the BID announced that the Makers Show, a New York concern that puts on markets in Brooklyn and Boston, would run the market in 2024. On Tuesday, Berman’s firm announced its market would take place in Dupont Circle.
Diverse Markets Management did “a great job,” BID President Gerren Price tells Washingtonian, “but we were looking for some changes for this year that would bring a more diverse mix of vendors, have some more opportunities for local makers, artisans, and small businesses, and just bring more food stalls—you know, really expand the market footprint.” That’s a nice way of saying it: Earlier this year, Price told the Washington Post that he’d gotten feedback about the market’s “declining quality” under local management. One complaint was that many of the same artists showed there every year, making it tough for newcomers to break in and diversify the market’s offerings.
And while some vendors Washingtonian spoke with expressed some frustration with rising rent prices for space at the downtown market, Jon Wye, who’s shown there for more than a decade, particularly here and in New York, says DC’s pricing was in line with what he paid to show elsewhere. Plus, artists will tell you: The downtown market was a great place to make money. “People did so well at that market,” says Jonathan Blum, a DC native and New York-based artist who rented space at the downtown market since it opened. “That’s why it was the same people every year. I would have done that market till I was 90.” Blum didn’t apply for this year’s downtown market, and he still hasn’t decided whether he’ll show at Dupont.
Berman tells Washingtonian he was bewildered by the BID’s decision, and he also believes that the BID used his “roadmap” to plan its event and contacted vendors using his list: “There’s no way you could find these people” without Diverse Markets Managements’ list, Berman says. Price categorically denies that: “We have not used any of his materials that he believes are proprietary and only engaged in moving forward with folks in our own capacities and contacts,” he says. Berman had considered legal action, but “it’s too much to pursue,” he says. “They have unlimited funds and I don’t.”
I spoke with a number of artists, and most felt that Berman got a raw deal from the BID. “I don’t know anyone who’s happy about it,” says one longtime seller who asked to be anonymous so they could speak freely. “I think DC was really shitty to Michael and the new folks are using the goodwill he built with the city for the last 20 years,” says Beth Baldwin, who crafts as Tigerflight (but hasn’t shown at the downtown market for a few years, primarily because of the cost of renting space). “It feels really weird that they didn’t give it to Mike again,” Wye says, though he cautions people against blaming the Makers Show for the decision–he’s worked with Julie Feltman, Makers Show’s founder, in markets in New York and says she’s terrific at her job. (Almost everyone I spoke with mentioned they’d have booths at Art on the Avenue in Del Ray this weekend.)
Neither the downtown nor the Dupont market demands exclusivity from vendors. “That would be pretty cruel,” Berman says. “I’m all for them making as much as they can.” Price describes Berman’s market as a “win-win” for holiday shoppers in town: “We’re actually excited to hear that there will be a new market opportunity in Dupont Circle,” he says. “We really see it as a value add.”
There will be differences. The downtown market will be bigger this year, Price says: “We’re really looking to expand the size, the look, the feel, the aesthetic of it all.” F Street will be closed, so there will be booths on the street and on the sidewalk, and he expects more opportunities for food sales. He plans for more vendors, around 100. (The market used to host about 70 vendors at a time, Berman says, and 20-30 rotated in and out through the season to bring its total to 100.) Price chalks part of the increase in exhibitors that he plans for to the BID’s decision to offer lower rent costs to artists. Vendors note, though, that the downtown market plans to offer smaller spaces to them this year, and that they have to pay a separate fee for parking, which used to be included in their rent.
Berman says the Dupont market will offer “definitely a smaller footprint than what I’ve been doing,” around 30 vendors, but the location is primo and should help build toward a bigger market in the future. He’d like to have a stage and some entertainment, which the downtown market always offered when he was in charge. “It’s a great location, and I love Dupont Circle,” he says.
I didn’t speak to any vendors who were able to make plans to show at the Dupont market this year, mostly because they found out about it so late in the season. Many of the exhibitors are one-person operations and couldn’t be in two places at once anyway. “It kills me to not be supporting his show this year,” says one. Caitlin Phillips, whose company Rebound Designs will have space at the downtown market this year, says that while she couldn’t make Dupont work this year, “I think it’s going to do great because [Berman] puts on a really good show.” And she’s optimistic that both markets can succeed. “I really hope that people come to both shows,” she says. “I think that there’s enough business in DC to support two holiday markets.”
The Downtown DC Holiday Market runs from November 22–December 23 on F Street between 7th and 9th streets, Northwest. It will be open from noon to 8 PM.
The DC Holiday Market runs from November 22–December 15 on 19th Street, Northwest, between Q Street and Dupont Circle. Its hours are noon to 8 PM Monday through Friday and 11 AM to 8 PM on weekends.
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
