RIVERVIEW, N.B. -- A night market in Riverview has been cancelled because it was too popular.
Hundreds were expected, but thousands showed up for the first three Wednesday openings causing town officials to pull the plug.
David Briggs was one of 20 or so vendors to jump on board.
"The sales helped, it’s been quite slow because of COVID," Briggs said. "It really boosted our sales into the evening the markets were open."
Measures were taken to control traffic flow, but the market became a victim of its own success.
"The market was really meant to be driven by volunteers and by the event coordinator that we had brought in," said Tahlia Ferlatte, Riverview's economic development officer."We did receive funding from the national farmers union in New Brunswick, which kind of helped bring this all to fruition but again, it had just exceeded what we had projected for."
For staffing purposes, the town planned for about 100 to show up at the market. On the first night, they had 10 times that amount.
"Ultimately, it came down to a lack of resources," said Ferlatte.
So the next three night markets have been cancelled.
"It is a bit of a disappointment to me," Briggs said. "I was hopeful we’d have three more weeks of some pretty good boost."
