Foodies, there is one less place to enjoy street food in Richmond this year. Rumours have been going around that the Illumination Summer Night Market, which was located on 2631 Vulcan Way in Richmond, has opted to not bring their event back this year.
A phone call to the operation’s office confirmed that the night market would not be back in 2018. While the official reason for the cancellation is unknown, Mario Lee, a night market booth owner from last year told the Richmond News that “In the end, we lost around $9,000 after four months hard-working. We won’t want to participate that night market again.”
Lee added that his team invested $16,000 last year in equipment and supplies.
“The first two weeks there are a lot of people, but after that we barely got any traffic. Also, many people just came to check out the lantern displays,” he said.
“This was a lesson for us and we will do more research next time if participating any night market in the future.”
The Illumination Night Market was rebranded a couple times. It first launched as the International Summer Night Market in 2008, then rebranded first to the Panda Night Market, then to last year’s light-infused Illumination Summer Night Market
However, do not confuse this summer market with the Richmond Night Market, which is located next to the River Rock Casino.
The good news is that the Richmond Night Market announced that they are opening on May 11 until Oct. 8 this year. This market is famous for its variety of interesting food, such as the hurricane potatoes, German pig hocks and Xinjiang-style lamb skewer.
— With files from Lindsay William-Ross from V.I.A
