By Will McGuirk

The Old Lady Shwa is hardcore on punk and metal. I see it in the shop, that section is very popular, and we see it on stage, most notably at the Atria. Oshawa likes it dark, and that goes in some part to explain the success of the Punk Rock Flea Market, the next instalment of which is taking over the Biltmore this Sunday Nov. 20 2022. What fleshes out the explanation of that success is the pair of punk rock creative entrepreneurs behind it all.

Slowcity got to the core of it for y’all.

Slowcity.ca: What is a Punk Rock Flea Market first and foremost?

Mel and Ally: “The Punk Rock Flea Market Oshawa is a curated, pop-up market featuring local artists and makers with a punk rock, DIY mentality. Punk Rock Flea Markets have been around for a few years now and happen all over the place! Currently the “punk rock flea market” name and concept are available for anyone to use, so these events have been popping up in cities all over Canada and the US.”

SC: Tell me about you, the organisers, how you came to collaborate, some bio details, and why do you think you became a creative entrepreneur?

M/A : “We met while playing roller derby back in 2016 or 2017. Mel from Drop Dead Candles had been doing the Punk Rock Flea Markets in London and encouraged Ally from Ghoul’s Night In to apply too! We were both making housewares for folks with an alternative edge because, at the time, there wasn’t a huge selection of alternative arts/décor in our area. After doing a few Punk Rock Flea Markets together in different cities, we decided to start our own in Oshawa! We had both grown up listening to punk, hanging out at the Dungeon on weekends, so we knew that there was a huge audience for this type of market in Oshawa. We love Oshawa and we’re so happy to be creating a space for all the local weirdos and misfits to come together and just have a rad time.”

SC: The first one at the Biltmore was by all accounts an overwhelming success. Tell me about its planning and what was the feedback you were getting?

M/A : “We hosted a few markets previous to the one at The Biltmore and pre-pandemic, but the last one at The Biltmore was a PARTY! No amount of planning could have prepared us for the amount of support that we received at the event in July. To be honest, we’re still a little bit baffled about how we managed to get so many people to come out to the event. We usually make some posts on social media and create a Facebook event, but we have never had such a huge turn out before. We think maybe word-of-mouth is possibly starting to snowball - folks have a good time and tell their friends, and so on. However it happened, we’re extremely grateful for the support!”

“If we want Oshawa to be the best it can be, with thriving small businesses, arts and culture, the City needs to create a welcoming environment to do so”

SC: Of course I love that you are providing an outlet for the area's creative entrepreneurs (folks who start a business in the culture/lifestyle sector), what do you think the environment for creative entrepreneurs is in Durham, what are the positives you see and where would you like to see changes, help, support etc?

M/A : “The environment for creative entrepreneurs in Durham is booming right now! It seems like every other day there is another maker’s market popping up, or another independent store featuring local makers opening. There is so much opportunity for small businesses and artists to take advantage of right now. We both feel that Oshawa is such a rad place to be, with lots of exciting people, food, and places to take in.

While it’s great to see so many people opening these spaces for local creatives, it would be nice to see more help from the City itself. While planning this upcoming November 20th event, we ran into a lot of red tape from the city that we hadn’t encountered before. It took us a very long time (and lots of running in circles) to finally find some help with the issues we were having.

We hope that some of the bylaws currently in place regarding “peddling” will be amended or removed in the near future, as we (and many other businesses and entrepreneurs) have found them to be extremely prohibitive to our success. If we want Oshawa to be the best it can be, with thriving small businesses, arts and culture, the City needs to create a welcoming environment to do so, versus creating barriers to success like outdated and unnecessary bylaws.”

SC: Tell me about some of your favourite items at the Market, are there things available you collect and why?

M/A : “It’s too difficult to talk about the favourites of the markets! We switch up our vendors for each market, so for every event there’s a new favourite. One of the best parts of the market is near the end when the market quiets down a little bit and all of the vendors are able to walk around and do their own shopping from their peers. It’s almost impossible not to purchase at least one thing from each of our amazing vendors.”