Market Days in Tallahassee, Florida

Market Days is the Tallahassee Museum's juried arts and crafts show and sale, held each December at the North Florida Fairgrounds, with the 2026 show set for December 5 and 6.

The museum event page says Market Days is back on December 5 and 6, 2026, at the North Florida Fairgrounds, that it is recognized in Sunshine Artist's Top 200 Events, and that it is as essential today for the Tallahassee Museum as it was in 1965. Funds from the show, the museum says, support educational programs for all ages, the care of its living wildlife collection and its historic buildings. The museum describes Market Days as a volunteer-run, rain or shine event.

The show's own website calls Market Days one of the Southeast's largest and best-juried arts and crafts shows, with the handmade creations of over 300 artists and craftspeople. The Tallahassee Museum that it benefits sits on 52 acres along Lake Bradford, and its About page says the museum began as the work of a few teachers in 1957 and took root on its current grounds in 1960.

Leon County also helps pay for it. The County Tourist Development Council's July 11, 2024 agenda lists Market Days as one of its first three Legacy Event grants and records awards of $56,000 for fiscal year 2022, $70,000 for FY 2023 and $85,000 for FY 2024, with measured visitors of 5,220, 5,090 and 2,690 and 1,560, 1,460 and 1,000 room nights; it marks the FY 2024 drop as weather. The agenda projects grants of $100,000 for 2025 and $110,000 for 2026, with a target of 6,000 visitors for the Tallahassee show in 2026, and notes the show planned to add a music element to its 2024, 2025 and 2026 events.

General admission to Market Days 2026 is $10 at the gate for anyone 13 and older, children 12 and under are free, and $30 Early Bird tickets are sold online only.

The ticket details below come from the Tallahassee Museum's Market Days page and the show's website, both checked on October 18, 2026. General admission tickets are sold only at the gate on the day of the event, are good only for the day of purchase, and the last ticket each day is sold 30 minutes before closing.

Everyone except infants needs an Early Bird ticket to enter during the Early Bird period, and general admission shoppers enter after it ends. Parking at the Paul Russell Road fairgrounds is free, according to the show's website, which also says the 2026 show adds a live music performance included with admission. Only trained service animals are allowed; pets and emotional support animals are not permitted, the museum says.

Every Market Days vendor in Tallahassee is juried, must sell original work, and pays a $35 application fee plus a $100 deposit to apply.

The Tallahassee show's rules and regulations say all arts and crafts media are eligible, items must be the original work of the artist or craftsman applying, the show is promoted as an arts and crafts show and not buy and sell, and artists can display and sell only work that has been juried. The Arts and Crafts Chair and committee have final approval on acceptance, placement and removal of misrepresented material. Applicants pay a non-refundable $35 application fee and a $100 deposit, which is refunded if the artist is not accepted; accepted artists owe the balance by August 31, after which no money is refunded.

The same page publishes its jury figures: an average of 325 applications a year, an average of 280 artists selected through the jury, and no artists exempted from the jury. Those numbers sit uneasily beside the show's description of over 300 artists and a welcome letter on the same site that counts nearly 350 juried and accepted artisans for this year's show; the site does not explain the difference. The site says 2026 vendor applications were to open in spring 2026. Works sold at the Tallahassee show range from fine art and pottery to woodwork, stained glass, jewelry, clothing, photography and calligraphy.

Market Days takes over the exhibit halls of the North Florida Fairgrounds on Paul Russell Road, on the south side of Tallahassee near South Monroe Street.

The show's website gives the location as 441 E Paul Russell Road, Tallahassee 32301, with an attendee phone line of (850) 575-8684, and its 2025 committee list assigns volunteer co-chairs to Buildings 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 plus an outdoor area, which shows how much of the grounds the show fills. The fair association's rental page counts six 12,000-square-foot halls, two of them heated and air conditioned, on a site it puts roughly 3 miles from the State Capitol.

Getting there without a car is possible. The association's visitor page notes that StarMetro buses stop close to the grounds. Market Days shoppers park free on site, and 2026 Early Bird ticket holders use the Monroe Street gate, according to the show site.

Leon County owns the Tallahassee fairgrounds, and the North Florida Fair Association, which rents the halls to shows such as Market Days, holds a long-term lease on most of it.

A County staff report in the April 14, 2026 Commission agenda lists Market Days among the regular non-fair users of the grounds, next to the North Florida Gun and Knife Show, the 850 Sports Card Show, the American Vintage Markets, boat shows and dog competitions. That report puts the lease at about 107 acres for $1 a year until the end of 2067, and cites a 2021 study estimating that people visiting the grounds for all events add approximately $79.2 million a year to the local economy, a number that covers every event there rather than Market Days alone.

The two descriptions of the Tallahassee property do not match: the association's rental page describes a 55-acre complex, while the County's report counts nine exhibition or storage buildings on the leased land. Neither explains the gap, so both figures are given here with their source.

Future Market Days shows could see a rebuilt fairgrounds, but nothing is final while Leon County and the fair association keep negotiating over a $30 million Blueprint plan.

Blueprint lists the master plan its board accepted on February 29, 2024: a new outdoor building with indoor meeting space and restrooms, renovated restrooms, utility upgrades, a central green with pavilions, ballfields at Capital Park, parking work near Gene Cox Stadium and new stormwater ponds.

Talks over control of the land stalled in spring 2026, when, according to the County report, the association turned down most of the County's terms. Leon County Commission minutes, printed in the June 9, 2026 packet, show a unanimous April 14 vote to keep talking and return with options in roughly half a year. As of October 18, 2026, the pages checked showed no change affecting the December 5 and 6 show.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, using the Tallahassee Museum's Market Days and About pages, the Market Days show site, two North Florida Fair pages, Leon County's July 2024 tourism agenda, Blueprint's fairgrounds project page, and Leon County Commission agenda packets of April 14 and June 9, 2026.