New LA Flea Market: The Good, The Bad, & The Crazy

*me at the Grand Opening*

This past weekend was the Grand Opening of the new LA Flea Market at Dodger's Stadium. There was a lot of hype surrounding this new flea market, and at a general admission price of only $5, the man and I thought we'd definitely give this one a try. Well needless to say, if you've talked to anybody who went, it started off on the wrong foot. We sat trapped in the car for over an hour because they weren't ready to open on time and they wouldn't even let people in the parking lot (if you live anywhere near LA you know this is the type of thing that would cause a riot...a lot of very unhappy people standing outside of their cars yelling...). Then once again, after we bought our tickets they made us wait AGAIN, because vendors were still driving around inside frantically trying to set up.

I felt very bad for the vendors. I talked to one of them that told me she had to wait for 2 hours before she could get in to even set up her booth! 2 hours!! That is crazy compared to how well run the next closest flea market is run (Rose Bowl Flea Market and Swap Meet). Now with that said, yes this was the very first time they had run anything like this here, so I'm pretty sure it would improve next time. Well they basically HAVE to improve the management aspect of the flea market or people will simply not go.

*waiting in the car*

Now on to the Good: While there weren't as many vendors as I expected, and it certainly wasn't as large as the Rosebowl Flea Market, I managed to score some great finds. In fact I spent at least an hour at just one of the booths and scored some beautifully constructed clothing for a really great price. A designer got into a legal battle with his backer and wasn't able to sell his collection. It is a really long story (I will share in another post some time with some of the items that I snagged), but he was basically forced to donate his collection and have the proceeds go to charity. The price tags were still on these babies, I literally bought $1,200 jackets for less than one-tenth that price. The attention to detail, craftsmanship and vision in these clothing were just amazing. I was really sad to hear the story behind it, but was glad that I was lucky enough to randomly fall upon it.

This flea market also has a great view of downtown LA. That's always a plus when you get a chance to see the "pretty" side of the city, and somewhere way in the background you could see the famous "Hollywood" sign up on the hill. Oh yes, and another plus was that they had PLENTY of food trucks and some large Shark thing? Couldn't quite figure out what that was, lol.

me and the man in front of the LA skyline

my shopping bag full of great little gems!

Dan with his new found friend :)

Food vendors and some Shark Attack!

After a tough morning of waiting, and hunting the Mr. and I stopped at one of our all time favorite Mexican joints (El Farolito) for a tasty margarita (did I already mention it was SUPER hot this weekend?) and amazing grub.

Did anybody else go to the new flea market this weekend? I'm curious to hear what other people thought too. Whatever you did, I hope you had a great time.

xox,

Bre