Christmas Markets Disappointment

[Insomnibrat]

So this year I decided to take myself off to the Manchester Christmas Markets for the day, in the interests of making myself feel festive. The last time I did this was probably 8 years ago and generally got a lovely warm glow from the whole experience.

I've come away feeling really 'meh' about it.... I expect mulled wine to be expensive, but £9 a cup!?! And no hopes of wandering around the markets, cosily huddled up, sipping it whilst perusing the stalls, no, I was bruskly told by a security guard to 'get back behind the fence', no drinking outside the hut. Oh.

I also noticed that a lot of the original craft stalls are all food and drink now, a good 70/30% spit in favour of food, and the stalls selling crafts were repeated every 5 or six cabins along, like they were all franchises, selling exactly the same goods.

It seems to have lost it's soul, somehow.

Anyone else been left slightly cold by the Markets this year?

Southampton Market is awful. Tacky and expensive.

Bath Market is an overcrowded, overhyped tat fest.

Most Swiss and Austrian markets are amazing.

I've been to the following :
York
Harrogate
Lincoln
Chester
I wouldn't rush back to any of them.

I thought it was crap this year too. But lots of other people looked to be having fun. I might have enjoyed it if I was not with the dc and could drink...

I used to like Edinburgh years ago but it’s rubbish now. Overcrowded, over priced and the same few stalls over and over again. Plus now some of the stalls are where they recently chopped down a bunch of lovely healthy mature trees which makes me sad, or maybe mad.

Mulled wine is shite, you’d have to pay me to drink it

I went to a local Christmas market a few days ago. I loved the opportunity to do some last minute shopping. But generally speaking it’s not worth it. Especially when you can buy gifts from your local shops and garden centre.

I live in a small town during term time and they do it every year. I absolutely love it!

In Edinburgh The Underbelly, which runs most of the Fringe venues, won the tender to do the Winter Festivals, including the market. They ramped up prices, pushed out the home-made type of stall holder, added lots more stalls (taking down trees in the process) and the whole thing has become a grim, grasping, damgerously crowded hellhole.

I agree with you and therefore, I don't go anymore. The last straw was when I was charged £4.95 for a square toasted marshmallow.

I love our Christmas market (lincoln) and go every year. It does feel magical but I think the location helps, being in the bail gate with all the twinkly lights and the atmosphere is lovely

Southbank winter festival. There were bratwurst and not a lot else. Irritatingly, they decorated the whole area with beautiful fresh Christmas trees. What a waste!

I used to live in Birmingham and got quite excited about the 'Frankfurt Market' for my first few years there. At least I got excited about being able to buy some delicious bread and potato pancakes but not so much about the other stuff on sale - the peruvian-style hats sold at every festival and community event and the nasty over-priced cakes being the biggest disappointments. Then they announced it was going to be bigger the following year and that turned out to mean '3 of every stall instead of 2' then it got to be more and more of the same. We stopped going, even for the bread!

agree with other posters about Edinburgh. last went about 3 years ago and it was an overcrowded tat fest then. we don't bother with it any more.

By contrast, Bristol Christmas market seems to be in two parts - half is the usual generic stalls but the other half is local makers plus they seem to have some sort of curling rink this year. MUCH better than last year, I quite enjoyed it.

We went to the Belfast market the other day, and I quite enjoyed it. Probably 60% food, 20% craft type stuff, and 10% other things, like a helter skelter, Santa's grotto etc. Most of the craft stalls were different, and I think most were genuinely stuff that the stallholders had made themselves.

It had a nice atmosphere, although we went just to walk round and get something nice to eat, rather than to buy presents.

Having said that, Belfast has gone nuts this year; the city centre Primark burned down in the summer, so the main shopping street has been closed off half way along since then. They've taken advantage of the lack of cars to add more stalls, a snow slope, carnival rides etc, so there's a fair bit to do.

I do think that church and community craft fairs are much better places to buy handmade craft stuff, though. Plus, they usually have a Santa's grotto that costs £1.50 or thereabouts, rather than £15 at the market!

If there were just a few and you went perhaps every five years, then maybe they would be OK. Now there are so many they just become another way of trying to get you to spend money on transient stalls, instead of the year round High Street shops.

Agree about the Manchester one - used to be all sorts of different food. Last time I went (last year) over zealous security about the mulled wine and just repeated sausages. Shame

Lincoln is local to us and have been to the Christmas market every year, bar this one. It is a lovely atmosphere in the City and the setting is beautiful. There are some lovely little stalls inside some of the halls, but it is the same overpriced product repeated five huts down in the main bits and the food stalls are the same too. It's too repetitive. I also hate the one way system, difficult to actually look at anything and it's difficult to not end up plodding along with the crowd. Would like to see more local producers, crafts etc. The Park and ride is great though and a breeze with kids.

I was in York last weekend. The Christmas market was hell on earth, as they invariably are. Luckily, as everyone was crammed into a tiny space tipping mulled wine down each other’s coats and pretending to be interested in wooden coat hooks painted blue, the Yorkshire Museum was almost empty. So I got to sit down a lot and DD got to rummage about looking at interesting stuff without being dragged along by the hand and trampled by crazed Harry Potter fans desperate to buy a chocolate frog on The Shambles.

I like the Chester one. It helps that Chester is pretty to start with. The Saturnalia festival is always interesting too! The look on tourists faces when the skeletons start passing through.

We generally go to one of the markets in Germany but over the last ten years we have noticed that even there the 'handmade' factor has reduced to almost zero and apart from the food, drink and chocolate coated slabs of pineapple we buy almost nothing, (we buy a lot of the latter!). The atmosphere does tend to be far more festive though than in the UK, we still love going and are gutted to have to miss this year!

I wanted to do a stall/shed this year but it was a 3k outlay. I don’t think I’d have broke even let alone made a profit. Think mainly people go to eat and drink.

Apparently South Bank is a lot smaller this year and no atmosphere.

Doesn't help that so many of them finish in November though....

We have been to Cheltenham & Bristol in recent years. Cheltenham was quite nice but had more stalls selling tat than selling proper crafts. One lady shot herself in the foot by telling me in great detail how she bought stuff from Poundland & how easy her tree decorations were to make then trying to get me to buy them for an extortionate price! DD bought some ornaments from a truly hideous glass stall. Bristol was disappointing & lacked atmosphere.
We live in Cornwall & there was a marquee in one of the local towns called “ Made in Cornwall” which had some beautiful goods for sale & superb locally produced food. I got some lovely smoked cheese & was very tempted by the chocolate. The jewellery & glass stalls were wonderful.

Same. I live in Cardiff and the little wooden chalet things are very cute , but they are definitely more and more food/drink every year (£5 for a crepe??!) and less craft. Maybe because I live here, I am desensitized, but meh.