On a Friday night in late March, the Mississippi Trade Mart in Jackson was alive with the promise of a good weekend. Vendors from across the South had spent the day hauling in handmade goods, boutique clothing, gourmet foods and holiday decor for the annual Spring Market, a beloved shopping tradition that draws thousands to the state fairgrounds. Many had been setting up booths since morning, arranging displays and plugging in curling irons, makeup vanities and string lights.
By 9:15 that evening, most had called it a night, looking forward to the doors opening at dawn. But inside Trade Hall B, something was smoldering. A candle on a shelf in the Prostyle Paris booth was still lit, and extension cords running beneath the display tables were doing more work than they should have. Just after midnight, a security guard noticed the smoke — too late to stop what the State Fire Marshal's office would later describe as an accidental fire that destroyed vendor booths and saturated the entire 110,000-square-foot building with smoke and soot.
The Spring Market was canceled. The All 4 Children Consignment Sale was canceled. More than one hundred vendors, many of whom had no storefronts and no websites, watched months of work turn to ash and residue. Jessica Phillips of Brandon, who sells under the name O! How Cute Gift Market, told WLBT she and her fellow vendors had brought everything they had physically been able to make in the weeks before the event. "Everything that they had was in that space," she said. Handmade candles, embroidered children's clothes, painted signs and preserves — all of it tainted by smoke before a single customer could walk through the doors.
In the days after the fire, Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson, whose agency oversees the Trade Mart, took to social media and urged Mississippians to rally. "While the Spring Market is cancelled for now, there is something we can do," he wrote, sharing the names of the affected merchants and a GoFundMe campaign aiming to soften the blow. For many of those businesses, the market is not a luxury — it is their primary sales outlet, their annual chance to meet customers face to face and hand out the $5 coupons that keep them in business through the year.
But the story does not end in March. It continues this weekend, when the Holiday Market of Jackson returns to the Mississippi Trade Mart from Sept. 18 through 20, bringing more than 125 merchants from across the country back to the very hall where the fire burned. The event, produced by MidSouth Media Group of Olive Branch, Mississippi, and promoted by Kristi Rowan, is billed as the kickoff to the fall 2026 shopping season — a three-day celebration of gifts, holiday decor, boutique clothing, jewelry, home accents, gourmet foods and the newest fall fashions.
For Rowan, who has run the company's markets across Tennessee and Mississippi for more than two decades, the return to Jackson is deeply personal. "The cancellation of Spring Market was devastating for so many of our merchants," she told SuperTalk Mississippi. "We plan for these events all year, and to see merchants lose product and merchandise was heartbreaking. But everyone has regrouped, the Trade Mart is cleaned up and ready, and we are excited to be back for Holiday Market."
The Trade Mart itself is no stranger to reinvention. The new building, which opened in October 2020 at a cost of $30 million, replaced an older structure built in the 1970s and sits adjacent to the Mississippi Coliseum on the state fairgrounds. The venue hosts meetings, exhibitions and markets for roughly 200,000 people each year. Its 110,000 square feet of exhibit space now gleams again after a deep cleanup, and Rowan says the team has gone further to make shoppers feel at ease. Security officers in golf carts will patrol the parking lot, Capitol Police will monitor the entrances, and the festival grounds will be staffed for the weekend so that shoppers can focus on the fun.
The market itself is free to browse, a fact Rowan wants every Mississippian to know. General admission hours run Friday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. But for those who want a little extra sparkle, two special ticketed experiences have been added. Friday evening's Margaritas & Mistletoe, from 4 to 8 p.m., offers wine, margaritas in a souvenir cup, a complimentary tote and a photo booth. Saturday morning's Muffins & Mimosas, from 9 a.m. to noon, pairs mimosas with a muffin and another tote. Both events require guests to be 21 or older and include general admission shopping for the day. Another nice touch: proceeds from a Gold Box Grab on Friday afternoon will benefit CARA, the Community Animal Rescue and Adoption of Jackson.
For the shoppers who walk through the doors this weekend, the event is a chance to cross names off the Christmas list before the holiday rush. But for the vendors behind the tables, it is something more. Many of them lost not just inventory but confidence in March. The fire took away their biggest weekend of the spring season, and the road back has meant rebuilding inventory, finding new suppliers and trusting a venue that, through no fault of its own, had become the site of their worst memory. The State Fire Marshal's investigation found that the fire resulted from an unlucky combination of a burning candle left unattended and overloaded extension cords — a reminder that even careful vendors can fall victim to the small shortcuts we all take.
The cleanup crews did their job. The inspection reports are filed. And the vendors, many of whom had to start from scratch, packed their cars again this week and drove to Jackson with fresh stock and renewed hope. The Holiday Market's own promotional materials put it plainly: "This year's event is especially meaningful. Many of our participating merchants were impacted by the spring fire, and your support helps them continue to rebuild and grow. Every purchase you make directly supports passionate small business owners and their families."
That is the real story of this weekend. It is not just a shopping market. It is a comeback. It is a hundred small businesses, from Mississippi and beyond, proving that a fire can fill a building with smoke but cannot put out a craftsperson's will to sell. When the doors open at nine on Friday morning, the Trade Mart will be full of merchants who have been waiting six months for this moment — and full of shoppers who remember, perhaps better than anyone, why it matters to buy from the people who make things with their own hands.
So come for the candles and the jewelry and the homemade pecan pie. Come for the photo booth and the mimosas. But most of all, come to be part of the moment when the Mississippi Trade Mart, its halls scrubbed clean and its lights burning bright, welcomes back the small businesses that make the South's shopping traditions worth keeping. The Christmas rush can wait. This weekend is about something bigger.