Mar. 15, 2023 By Carlotta Mohamed
The Queens Night Market is selling a limited amount of tickets for two “sneak preview” events on April 15 and April 22 to help alleviate traffic and capacity issues on opening night seen in previous years.
Tickets are $5 and should be purchased in advance; children under 12 are free. If any tickets remain unsold for either night, tickets will be $8 at the door.
Tickets for April 15 and April 22 can be purchased here. The event is pledging at least 20% of net ticket proceeds to charity. Across all of last year, Queens Night Market raised and donated over $40K to charities providing relief for Hurricane Fiona, supporting refugees worldwide, and promoting Queens arts and artists.
The Queens Night Market will be free and open to the public on Saturday nights starting on April 29.
Over its first seven seasons, the Queens Night Market has welcomed over 2 million visitors, helped launch approximately 350 brand-new businesses in New York, and represented over 90 countries through its vendors and their food.
In 2022, the event averaged over 15,000 attendees each Saturday night. Last year was also the busiest year on record for Queens Night Market vendors. Despite the $5 and $6 price caps imposed on their menus, food vendors averaged over $2,700 per night in sales. Thanks to a major sponsorship from Citizens, the popular $5 and $6 price cap on all food items will remain in place this year. The partnership has enabled the organizer to reduce the vendor fees for all food and merchandise vendors for the entire season, to the extent that vendor fees are far lower than they’ve ever been before.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about the legacy of the Queens Night Market lately. We only operate about 25 nights per year, so it’s hard to call us an economic engine that powers much of anything, really,” said John Wang, founder of the Queens Night Market. “But on each of those Saturday nights, about 400 people are being employed and thousands of families are having an affordable outing in a largely unaffordable city. From the very beginning, we set out to be NYC’s most affordable and most diverse community space … and if we haven’t gotten there yet, I hope we’re still making steady progress towards.”
Nuno Dos Santos, retail banking director at Citizens, said the partnership between Citizens and the Queens Night Market will make this year the best yet by ensuring access and affordability for vendors and guests alike.
“As part of the Queens community, Citizens is proud to support small businesses, our neighbors and visitors, all of whom have made the Queens Night Market a symbol of resilience and growth in New York,” Dos Santos said.
The curatorial mission of the Queens Night Market is to feature traditional foods that may be hard to find in NYC, made by the people who grew up eating them. The event has received over 400 applications so far this year. The event also hosts plenty of art/merchandise vendors, and the season will include vintage apparel, hand-poured candles, travel photography, crochet toys, stationery, small-batch soap, henna, vintage brooches and ads, international handcrafts, NYC-themed apparel, gourmet dog treats, handmade jewelry, ceramics and local art.
The Queens Night Market will continue to showcase several live performances every Saturday night. To date, the event has featured over 400 musicians, bands and performance groups — including African dance troupes, capoeira, karate demonstrations, Brazilian drum lines, jazz bands, salsa bands, brass bands, blues bands, a cappella groups, Balinese gamelan, Chinese lion dances, Vietnamese fan dances, break-dancers, yo-yo artists, Chinese diabolos, belly dancers, hula hoop artists, pianists, violinists, mariachis, beatboxers, Bollywood bands, tap dancing, street jugglers, magicians, high school orchestras and much more.
The 2023 entertainment lineup will be announced in the coming weeks.
Interested vendors should apply online or direct questions to vendor@queensnightmarket.com