Nearing the close of the market’s second indoor season at Provo Towne Centre, vendors and organizers collectively agree the new market has been worth doing, though some believe it remains an unknown commodity.

“Year No. 2 has been pretty good,” said Emily Weatherhead, the market’s assistant director. “Year No. 1 was successful enough, both vendor-wise and attendance-wise, that we decided to go through with the second, and it’s also proved successful.”

Weatherhead cited two benefits of the market: It supports vendors, many of whom are local businesses, and has exposed the farmers market to mall patrons who otherwise did not know about it.

The market averages around 60 to 70 vendors a week, with a higher number around Christmas and fewer toward the end of the season, Weatherhead said. 

On Saturday, dozens of booths were scattered throughout the main atrium and hallways of the mall, while live music played in the center. There was a stream of customers, but not to the same volume you’d see at Provo’s outdoor market.

“Word is getting out. We wish that more people knew about it,” Weatherhead said. “I mean, the farmers market itself has been going on for over 20 years, but every year we still get local residents who don’t know about that market.”

Erica McDonald and Samson Klein, owners of MushBetter Mushrooms, said they have sold at the majority of winter markets this season and get approximately a quarter of the traffic and sales they do at the summer market.

If they were paying someone to sell the product, they said they’d break even or be slightly under, but that it’s still worthwhile to be there.

“We’re treating this as brand recognition, so then we can get them to our shop, or they fall in love with it, and then we get repeat buyers,” Klein said.

Holly Craig, a local business owner who makes “a little bit of everything” — jewelry, pillow covers, jean jackets, etc. — said she has enjoyed being indoors and that more people have come than she expected, considering the mall’s lack of customers.

She also said she’s had more customers in Year No. 2 of the market than Year No. 1 and is a fan of the event.

“I think it’s a great way to keep the market culture, market system going during the winter, because it has in the past been very much a summer type of thing,” Craig said. “And so people who are vendors are usually vending only during the summer, and then you have to pack everything up, and you’re not making any money, you know, from like October to April, and so it is nice to have that secondary source of revenue.”

The winter market will run for two more Saturdays, on March 28 and April 4, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The summer market starts June 7 and runs through October.