Richmond Night Market

UPDATE (6/27/08): Click here for complete Summer Night Market information.

Visitors to the Vancouver area will quickly notice that there is a very substantial Chinese population in this city. As such, there are a lot of cultural events that take place throughout the year and one of the most popular is the annual Richmond Night Market.

Taking place over a span of several months over the summer, the annual event is where people can spend their evenings shopping in an outdoor marketplace and enjoying some food at Richmond Night Market. It may have been plagued with some counterfeit items (fake Gucci purses, for example) in the past, but this is what happens when you have a Hong Kong-style marketplace!

I’ve written a few things on the Richmond Night Market in the past, largely because the official website is seriously lacking in information. This year, unfortunately, the official website does have an important piece of information.

Richmond Night Market Cancelled for 2008

Target Events is the company that owns the copyright to the name “Richmond Night Market” and they are the ones who have been running the annual festivities for the past few years. They were unable to secure the lease for the same site as last year and they were unable to secure another site in Richmond for this year. They are currently looking for a new site for Richmond Night Market 2009.

This means that there will not be a Richmond Night Market this year. However, this does not necessarily mean that there will not be a different outdoor Hong Kong-style marketplace in Richmond; it just means that it won’t be run by Target Events. If another promotional company decides to do something, they can. Alternatively, you can consider the Chinatown Night Market in Vancouver. The Chinatown Night Market opens tomorrow.

UPDATE: Lions Communications says that they will be hosting a night market in Richmond called the Summer Night Market. It will likely be in the same location as last year, but Target Events removed all the plumbing, wiring, and sanitary facilities last year. Lions has taken steps to set up the site for this year. According to their website, they are gearing up to open on May 30 and the Summer Night Market will run until October 5.