Salamanca Market

Salamanca Market
Salmanca Market in 2010.
Genre	Fresh produce, local art and crafts
Date(s)	Every Saturday.
Begins	8.30 AM
Ends	3.00 PM
Frequency	Weekly
Location(s)	Salamanca Place, Hobart
Years active	45
Inaugurated	22 January 1972 (1972-01-22)
Participants	300 stalls

Salamanca Market is a street market in Salamanca Place, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. It is a major tourist attraction in Tasmania, and is held on Saturdays between 8.30am and 3.00pm.

The original idea of running a Community Market in Hobart's Salamanca Place was suggested to Alderman John Clemente in 1971 by the National Council of Women Tasmania through their then President Mrs Grace Montgomery. Alderman Clemente promoted the concept to the Hobart City Council and the Council's Resolution to trial a market was passed on 28 June 1971. The initial market, consisting of about 12 stalls, was located at the Silos end of Salamanca Place and held 7 months later on 22 January 1972.

Salamanca Market operated just in the summer for the first few years of its life. It started 4 weeks before Christmas and ran until Easter. It proved to be so popular and successful that the Tasmanian Puppet Theatre, in 1975, established a Winter Market. In 1977 they were joined and aided in their market's operation by the Salamanca Arts Centre.

Salamanca Market had grown quite considerably by 1977, with many stallholders attending regularly and so an informal Stallholders' Association, chaired by Philip Broughton, was established. He negotiated the concept of 'Permanent Stallholders' with the Council. This resulted in regular stallholders being identified, assigned fixed sites and paying rent in advance.

By this time the Market had grown to about 150 stalls and now encompassed most of the lower part of Salamanca Place stretching from its origins near the Silos up to Montpellier Retreat.

The Salamanca Stallholders Association was officially established on 19 February 1987.

Later that year the Council took over the running of the Winter Market from the Arts Centre. Over the next year or so the Summer Market's opening hours were changed from 9am-1pm to 9am-2pm.

In April 1992 the Southern Star reported that Salamanca Market was attended by between 10,000 and 12,000 people every week. Later in the year the Market was extended up to Gladstone St in order to increase the number of sites available to Casual Stallholders.