Toukley Lions Markets
A weekly Sunday market on Yaralla Street with around fifty years of history, brought back by the local Lions Club after a difficult few years.
About this market
The Toukley markets have been a Sunday fixture for around fifty years, but their recent history is the more interesting part. When operation of the market passed from the council to a privately held company, stallholder fees rose to as much as $60, participation collapsed over about fifteen months, and a market that had always been carried by an older local community started to empty out. The Lions Club of Toukley tendered successfully to take it over and staged their first refreshed market on 19 December 2021.
What a genuine community market looks like
The stall mix is broad in the way an unpretentious weekly market has to be. Fresh fruit and vegetables sit alongside handmade crafts and gifts, plants and garden items, collectables and second-hand finds, clothing and accessories, household items and bric-a-brac. Tools and books turn up regularly. New stallholders come and go, so the floor genuinely changes week to week, and many of the traders are local small businesses, hobbyists and community members rather than a circuit of professional market sellers.
Market at a glance
Because a service club runs it, the money works differently from a commercially operated market. Stall fees are the club's fundraising, so what you spend on a stall booking ends up in local projects rather than a promoter's margin, and the club can afford to keep fees at a level the older stallholder base can actually pay.
The market nearly died. In the fifteen months before the Lions took over, stallholder numbers fell away sharply after fees climbed to as much as $60, and the club's first job was rebuilding a trader base that had already walked away.
Good to know before you go
Yaralla Street sits right next to the Coles carpark, which is the easiest way to find it and the easiest place to park. Get there in the first hour or two if produce or plants are the point, since the good stuff moves early and trading is done by 1pm. Bring cash: this is a market where a lot of stallholders are individuals rather than businesses, and not all of them carry a card reader. Bring your own bags too. If you are hunting for a specific collectable, it is worth coming back another week rather than deciding the market does not have it, because the stall list genuinely rotates. This is Darkinjung country.
Frequently Asked Questions
- When are the Toukley Lions Markets on?
- Every Sunday, 8am to 1pm.
- Where do the stall fees go?
- Into the Lions Club of Toukley's charitable work, supporting local organisations, community projects and people in need.
- How do I book a stall?
- Contact Janet on 0429 508 355 or Rosemaree on 0408 161 290, or use the contact form on the Toukley Lions Club website. A stallholder application form is available to download.