Administrative – Toronto Dark Arts Market

October 21, 2026

Should I Stay or Should I Go Now? Alternatives to Meta

We’re seeing a lot of people talking about abandoning Meta due to their upcoming policies regarding scraping of website data from business-related accounts. We totally understand how most artists will want to avoid having their website content used to train AI – it’s bad enough that everything we post to Meta is already used to train their data servers, right down to images of our faces (which are then being used by organizations like ICE to identify immigrants for deportation) ‒ to have all the stuff we intentionally don’t share on Meta also be used is egregious and offensive.

Having said that, Toronto Dark Arts Market could not have become successful without Meta’s various platforms as a means of promoting our events and our artisans. The following we’ve built here has done more for us than any amount of street postering could have, and it’s way easier on the shoulders. By which I mean, we’re not going anywhere, and our accounts will all remain.

However, to accommodate those of you moving on to other sites, we’ve arranged some alternatives…

First and foremost – we have a newsletter. You can sign up on our website and receive an email every time we update the news page on our website. This includes everything except the vendor profiles associated with each market, so; vendor calls, reminder about upcoming events, etc. Find this on our website’s Contact page.

We’re also on Bluesky, although we’ve not been especially active until now. And we’ve just created accounts on three different social sites – Eh!Social, and Hey.Cafe which are based in Canada but welcome everyone, and Gander, for Canadians only. We are @torontodarkartsmarket on all platforms, including the Meta ones, so please find us where ever you are and give us a follow or hit the Contact page on our website and follow the links.

No matter where you end up, know that we fully intend to continue our support and promotion of small, local, indie, alternative Canadian artisans, artists, and authors, and hope that you will also do the same.

September 18, 2026September 18, 2026

2027 Market Dates

We’re excited to announce our full schedule of market dates for 2027.

As always, dates are confirmed but may be subject to rescheduling or cancellation, depending on what craziness life throws at us.

We’ve got ten markets planned in total, with two Bookish markets that will feature authors, small publishers, zines, stationery, etc.

Please mark your calendars, and we hope you will join us at one (or all!!) of these in the coming year.

January 16th – Winter Bookish Market – Vendor Call: November 3rd to 17th
February 13th – My Bloody Valentine Market – Vendor Call: November 24th to December 8th
April 17th – Gothic Garden Market – Vendor Call: February 2nd to February 16th
May 22nd – World Goth Day Market – Vendor Call: March 9th to March 23rd
June 19th – Goth Pride Market – Vendor Call: April 6th to April 20th
July 17th – Summer Bookish Market – Vendor Call: May 11th to May 25th
August 22nd – Toronto Goth Weekend Market – Vendor Call: June 8th to June 22nd
October 9th – Hallowmas Market – Vendor Call: August 10th to August 24th
November 13th – Early Holiday Market – Vendor Call: September 7th to September 21st
December 4th – Merry Creepmas Market – Vendor Call: September 28th to October 12th

Vendors interested in taking part in our events should sign up for our Vendor Mailing List to receive advance notice of vendor calls.

August 14, 2026July 21, 2026

Beach Party Market – Goth Shopping

Surfs up, and we’re headed to the beach!

If you’re planning on dropping by – and you should, our talented artists and artisans have got so much amazing stuff for you to check out – why not make a day of it, and visit some of these other cools events going on as well.

The annual Zine Dream festival will be taking over the Parkdale Hall, just down the street.

And across town, the monthly Toronto Queer Market takes over Barbara Hall Park with vendors and food and fabulous drag performances.

Can’t make it into the city? xThe Gatheringx is taking place in Bowmanville, and the Last Night on Earth Market runs at Victoria Square in Guelph.

Of course, we hope you won’t miss us, so here’s our deets one more time! We hope to see you there!

Beach Party Market
Saturday, August 15th
11am – 5pm
Ground Control
1279 Queen St. W., Toronto

Our market is family-friendly, our venue is fully accessible (except for the stage), the bar will be open so you can sip while you shop, and there’s an ATM on site.

Admission is free.

July 15, 2026

Event Cancellation – Fall Fashion Fair

With apologies to anyone who was hoping to take part or attend our Fall Fashion Fair Market on September 12th, due to unforeseen circumstances we will not be proceeding with this event.

Our Beach Party Market will still take place, and we hope to see you at Ground Control on Saturday, August 15th.

Artists and artisans interested in taking part in a Toronto Dark Arts Market event are welcome to apply to one of our seasonal markets, taking place in October, November and December. A full list of upcoming markets and vendor calls can be found on the vendor information page, along with a form to sign up for our vendor mailing list.

April 30, 2026April 30, 2026

Scam Alert Reminder

Hello Darklings,

This is a reminder for potential vendors of TDAM events (or any other market or events where you are required to pay a vendor fee), to please keep yourself safe and ensure that you are dealing directly with the official TDAM account.

We have recently heard from another person who gave money to a scammer back in early January, thinking they were booking space with us for an upcoming market.

We have put a variety of safety measures in place to help prevent situations like this from happening, but they all require potential vendors to be aware of what to look for.

As a reminder:

we only accept applications during specific vendor call windows, and only through the form embedded on our official website – we NEVER use JotForm, Google docs, or any other 3rd party application form
we only use an official contact@torontodarkartsmarket.com email for all correspondence and payments – we NEVER use gmail, not even a variation of our business name, and we NEVER use DMs on any social network for official business-related interaction
on social media, we only post from our official Toronto Dark Arts Market accounts. For some Facebook groups that do not allow pages to post, I will share an official TDAM post via my personal account, but all information will specifically reference and link to our official website
we are in regular correspondence with selected vendors leading up to a market; we send out promo packages, load-in documents, and confirmations of all correspondence you send us, such as for payments or image submissions. This will always be from our official email address.

If you come across a vendor call posting that claims to be TDAM and does not link back to our website, or uses anything other than our official email address or social media accounts, please let us know. We do everything we can to get these accounts shut down, but this is an ongoing fight, and they have a tendency to pop back up again.

To ensure you’re seeing our official vendor calls, you can:

join the Vendor Mailing List on our website
subscribe to the Newsletter on our website
follow us on our official accounts on Instagram, Facebook or Threads

As a reminder, we are not responsible for providing either a spot or a refund to any vendor ripped off by scammers. Please be careful out there and protect yourselves.

January 29, 2026January 29, 2026

Scam Alert – Please Read

Hey everyone!

Last night, someone scraped the content of our vendor FAQ and application pages and created a scam application on JotForm. The vendor call was posted to a group on Facebook.

Both JotForm and the Facebook group’s administrators were fantastic in removing the form and post as soon as they were alerted to it, but if you came across a vendor call post on the Facebook group Vendor Search Ontario – this was not us, and please do not send these jerks any money. And if you see a post offering spots at any Toronto Dark Arts Market event that was not made by the TDAM account, or that takes you anywhere other than to our official website, that is not us.

To reiterate, because they can be faked so easily, we never use third-party forms such as Google forms or JotForm to solicit vendors. While we post calls for vendors on various Facebook groups, we do not communicate with potential vendors about applications on any form of social media, including direct messaging. We will only accept applications via our website, and we will only communicate with vendors via our official email address. This is for your safety and security, as there are clearly many assholes out there interested in parting unsuspecting artists with their money.

If you come across any of these fake accounts claiming to be TDAM, or vendor calls that do not lead to our official website, please contact us and let us know so we can work to have them shut down.

And please do your research and be careful about who you are giving your money to. These scammers are getting more sophisticated and greedy (they copied our logo, rewrote the descriptions with ChatGPT, scraped the web site contents – and rewrote the application form to raise the table fees), and they don’t care that market vendors are small, independent businesses, struggling to get by.

We are doing everything we can on our end to stop this from happening, but dealing with scammers is like a game of whack-a-mole – no matter how many you bash, there’s more popping up everywhere. Stay safe out there.

October 23, 2025October 19, 2025

New Market Dates for 2026

Because we are aware that it’s hard to be an alternative indie artist right now, we are delighted to announce three new markets for our 2026 event schedule that will help create more opportunities for local artists, artisans, and creators.

Our Book-ish Market in May 2026 will feature authors, writers, indie publishers, and creators of book and writing-related items and accessories such as journals, paper, pens, and cards.

To accommodate the huge number of jewellery and accessory vendors who apply to our markets, we’ve added a Fall Fashion Fair in September 2026, which will also be open to indie clothing designers and vintage resellers.

And finally, we will be adding an additional holiday market in November 2026 to allow for early Christmas shopping and to offer vending opportunities to even more makers at the busiest time of the year.

Also, please note that we’ve adjusted the date for the 2026 instalment of our Hallowmas Market from the previously announced date to October 10th (Thanksgiving weekend), to hopefully allow for a wider spread of events across the month, making it easier for more vendors and customers to take part.

A full list of dates and vendor calls can be found below, with more info on each market available by selecting a specific event from the drop-down menu.

2026 Market Dates
February 7th – My Bloody Valentine Market – Vendor Call: November 25th to December 9th
April 18th – Gothic Garden Market – Vendor Call: January 27th to February 10th
May 23rd – Book-ish Market – Vendor Call: March 17th to 31st
June 20th – Goth Pride Market – Vendor Call: April 7th to 21st
August 15th – Goth Beach Party Market – Vendor Call: June 9th to 23rd
September 12th – Fall Fashion Fair – Vendor Call: July 7th to 21st
October 10th – Hallowmas Market – Vendor Call: August 4th to 18th
November 15th – Early Bird Holiday Market – Vendor Call: September 1st to 15th
December 5th – Merry Creepmas Market – Vendor Call: September 29th to October 13th

October 18, 2025October 17, 2025

Hallowmas Market – Today!

Today, Saturday, October 18th, 11am – 5pm… Hallowmas Market

Ground Control
1279 Queen St. W.

Enter if you dare! We have tricks… and oh, so many treats! 40 of Toronto’s coolest, creepiest, spookiest artists and artisans will convene on October 18th to offer their creations to help you celebrate the best day of the year!

Our market is (mostly) family-friendly. Our gorgeous venue is close to parking and transit, is fully accessible, and has an ATM on site. The bar will be open for customers to enjoy a beverage while they shop.

Admission is free.

August 19, 2025July 17, 2025

Hallowmas Market – Vendor Call Now Closed

The vendor call for our Hallowmas Market on October 18th is now closed. We thank everyone who expressed interest in taking part.

All applicants, including those on the waiting list, will be contacted no later than August 21st. Please check your inboxes and spam folders.

We ask that artisans who did not apply during the vendor call please do not contact us asking for a spot – any cancellations will be filled from the existing wait list.

To avoid missing calls for future events, be sure to sign up for our vendor mailing list.