Beneath the late autumn trees towering over Cheltenham's promenade, there lies a quaint Christmas market. The wooden-plank façades of the buildings provide a traditional holiday charm, lined with fairy lights and tinsel. In the centre is a large festive bar with a seating area, playing archetypal Christmas music. There is a diverse handful of small businesses surrounding it, some seasonal and others quite far from it.
I spoke to a student, Jacob Matthews, who is from the local university. He is working at a stall selling moonshine and has uni on top of this, but he said it is "good fun and everybody's cool, [there's] lots of nice people about and free food." On whether or not he thinks markets like these help support small businesses, he agrees - "I do, my parents run a succulent business, and doing this has given me a bit of a taster of it, and that would be a small business I guess. And we're thinking of maybe next year doing some Christmas markets, because you can make good money on it. Especially like a businessowner down here, even as me just working for them.
"There's money to be made it's just that they put it in a weird location, on the promenade you don’t get that many people come through as compared with the high street. But it's cool and there's interesting people down here all the time."
Another store vendor named Cheryl, selling African goods, said that she likes Cheltenham and "has good clientele here", and works at other markets like the Racecourse. I asked her about the benefits of markets to small businesses, she said that "exposure and being able to put us on a platform for people to be able to see products helps small businesses to develop." She added that some music or a band would be a nice presence at the market.
The Cheltenham Christmas Market runs from 20th November to 19th December and is situated along Cheltenham's promenade.
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