Newcastle’s Christmas Markets Officially Open for Festive Season

Local TV

Newcastle’s Christmas Markets and Christmas festivities have officially opened for the season, with more than sixty traders including some of the region’s best-loved independents.

Transcript

00:00Newcastle Christmas Markets has now officially opened with over 60 businesses, including

00:05some much-loved regional favourites, contributing in this year's newly expanded market, with

00:11stalls on Granger Street, Grey Street, around Grey's Monument, in Old Eldon Square, and

00:17new for this year on Nelson Street. This year's expanded market provides more retail opportunities

00:24than ever before, with a strong focus on featuring the very best of the North East.

00:30As part of this commitment, the cultural powerhouse of Baltic will be trading during the first

00:34two weeks of the Christmas market season, joined by High Street icons Lush, Fennec and

00:40John Lewis. Fennec will be running a local bottle shop featuring drinks made exclusively

00:45in the North East. Lush will bring its skin and hair care, soaps and body wash, and John

00:50Lewis will set up a Christmas shop offering an array of festive gifts and seasonal decorations.

00:57We've been talking about it for so long, now to actually see it in the flesh, all of the

01:01maps, all of the plans made real, I think they can expect to see, you know, a major city centre

01:07event of quality and celebrating local. There's a lot of scale to it, it's bigger this year

01:12than it has been before, so we've added more stalls on Nelson Street, we've also added a

01:16Ferris wheel into Old Elden Square, as well as all the sort of favourite stuff that you might expect,

01:21and some really great retailers and food operators. We've really pushed on retail this year,

01:27and we want to make sure that this is a market that'll help you with that Christmas list, you know,

01:31that'll help you with something that you want to buy, so I think people will have a great time if

01:35they come in and visit. It's so important for us to add sort of family-friendly things to the market,

01:40it's quite unique, we find, you know, there's a lot of markets in other cities that have got,

01:44you know, lots of stalls, but they don't maybe have that family offer, and we think it's so vital

01:49to have something you can bring the kids into right in the heart of the city centre. So we have a Santa

01:54Stories experience, where Santa will read stories to little children, and we also have Mrs. Claw's

01:59Bakery, where you can decorate gingerbread men, I believe. We have a Ferris wheel, a carousel, and we also

02:05have the Rockin' Reindeer stage, where you can catch character performances from everyone,

02:09including the Grinch, and some princesses of an icy place, shall we say. So we're really pleased that

02:17we've got some great local traders here, and that is everything from, you know, Geordie Bangers,

02:23that everybody sort of knows and loves, all the way through to Tian's Gifts, that are based in the

02:27Granger market, and we've got some local jewellery makers as well, there's Elemental Photography,

02:32as a local photographer. It's really great that these businesses get a platform in the city centre for

02:36this period, to really showcase what they do. I think there's a few things at play really,

02:41it's certainly something that, as a core city, Newcastle should really be doing. You know,

02:45we want Newcastle to be established as a destination city at Christmas. We want to be bringing people in,

02:50because, you know, our competitors are. Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Edinburgh,

02:54they're all bringing people in for extensive Christmas markets.

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