Let's get you all caught up...

Hey folks,

Chris here. I'm the middle aged bearded guy that always has the Blue Jays hat on and always has a premo curation of VHS at his booth. I thought it could be neat to write a blog about the market as this thing continues to evolve and grow with each new market.

Since this is the first blog post, I'll just do quick synopsis of each market post a pic etc you all get the gist. This is the history of the market thus far, as I can recall, but I'm sure I could be off on some stuff, but will make edits when folks tell me I done goofed.

TC War Room Yard Sale: July 8th 2021

John had owned TC Paintball/ TC War Room for little over a year at this point and after getting his feet wet owning the place, found stuff that wasn't really selling and wanted to do a massive clearance sale.

Figured we'd give this thing a shot and our first attempt at a yard sale was this dinky lil road side attraction.

This lil street stand blew away all expectations we had, we had regulars come check out the sale and random rubberneckers driving by who turned around to check stuff out. The parking lot was huge, our friend Dillion had bought a food truck and we knew other nerds in the area we could ask to fill up some spots!

Our First Official Market : July-22-23

The yard sale had potential, but I wanted to make it something more.

Being a Warhammer 40k-focused store, I drew inspiration from the game’s origins as "Rogue Trader" for a catchy name.

I enlisted my longtime friend and local cartoonist, Jeff Manley, to design our nerdy mascot. Jeff quickly became our go-to "art guy."

We lined up a food truck and about 10 vendors for the first event—but we got rained out, starting an all-too-familiar trend! I some how can't find any photos :(

Geek Trader Market 2: The New Batch

We are still calling it Geek Trader Swap Meet, but this baby grew into an infant and was heading for the cupboards... People kept asking when the next swap meet was going to be, so we sorta scrambled and wanted to get one going asap. This time, local radio legend and long time friend Cartman told me he wanted to put a focus on local events and had folks come on his morning show to promote. This one interview, really helped us gain some legitimacy in the area and brought out far more people than expect, especially IN THE RAIN! Lest we forget, the belle of this ball was De Food Truck, coming in clutch with their killer D&D themed menu which everyone seemed to have a blast with.

Geek Trader Market 3: Rise of the Geeks (4-28-24)

This swap meet had a lil rebranding and Mr. Manley absolutely killed it with our logo.

After learning about the microplastics in our local waterways, from Dr. Roster and students at NMC we wanted to try and help keep some nerd plastic from making it to our water sources and teamed up with the other local game stores to collect misc plastic from board games and model kits. This was a real cold and rainy one, but we also got much better photos this time thanks to Liza at She Wolf Photo Co I think by this market we were well over 20 or so vendors.

Friday the 12th: Not the Final Chapter (7-12-24)

Living in northern Michigan means Friday nights can be a bit boring, so we decided to make the Geek Trader Market a fun, social hangout. People came out to grab some delicious food, enjoy ice cream, and join our first Geek Trivia contest, with gift cards donated by TC War Room, Top Comics, The Fun Factory, and GT Games.

Our regular food vendor, Dilliano's, kept everyone satisfied with their amazing offerings, while Fried was a hit, and grabbing a tasty frozen treat from Anywhere Icecream was the perfect way to wrap up the evening. By this point, we had grown to about 30 vendors!

Hobby Hang Out @ Right Brain Brewery 10-13-24 (This is where we had our first side quest! )

Like all of our markets, I hit the streets and plastered fliers around town. With Right Brain's cool vibe and their strong community presence, it seemed like the perfect place to put up a poster. When I went to drop it off, I was lucky enough to meet Russel, the owner, who was pouring pints. After a quick glance at the flier, he looked at me and asked, "Why don't you just do this here?"

That’s when things really started to click. We locked down a date and began planning how to squeeze our big outdoor market into a cozier indoor space. But before the event, I wanted to get a group of vendors together, along with anyone else who wanted to join in for a chill hangout—painting models, drinking pints, and enjoying a potluck.

That evening with everyone definitely helped spark the excitement for what would become the best market yet... by far.