Holiday Treasures Festival in Hardenville serves up good eats, holiday treats and family fun
Jan Hoyt, left, and daughter Dana Welch operate Triple Treasures Marketplace on Highway 160 in Hardenville. Now in their third year, the pair say business is good. Triple Treasures is hosting a Holiday Treasures Festival Friday and Saturday, Nov. 5-6.
Hoyt says nearly 90 vendors have signed up for this weekend’s Holiday Treasures Festival, which will have free visits with Santa as well as inexpensively priced family games and bounce houses for the kids. Three open-air barns behind the family-fun activities will feature shopping and dining vendors.
Shoppers can visit booths in three 10,000-square-foot open-air pavilions.
Among the vendors at the festival are woodworkers who will be demonstrating their skill to onlookers, as well as selling their handmade items. This photo was taken at a Triple Treasures event earlier this year.
The duo behind Hardenville’s Triple Treasures Marketplace, Jan Hoyt and daughter Dana Welch, have been hard at work the last few weeks, gearing up for their Holiday Treasures Festival this Friday and Saturday. The event runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 5, and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 6.
Triple Treasures Marketplace is located on Highway 160, about 6 miles east of Gainesville. The event center features three 40-by-250-foot, open-air covered pavilions and 8 acres of open land where vendors spread out with games, food, fun and items. The open-walled pavilions provide a dry place to shop and visit during rainy weather, allowing the event to operate on a rain-or-shine policy.
Fun for the kids - and a visit with Santa
“Admission is free, and there are a lot of free things to do too. Cass Martin and some of his deputies will be stopping by in their vehicles, and the Bikers Against Child Abuse will be here with their bikes,” Hoyt said. “We’ve got Patricia Blackwell, who does free music and karaoke out in the middle area. And Santa Claus will be here to visit with children, free of charge.”
Hoyt says parents should bring cameras or phones to take photos of their children with Santa if they’d like.
“Bill Parsons with R&R Amusements will be there with several bounce houses, darts and lots of other games and attractions for other fun for attendees of all ages. He only charges $2 or $3 per game, and there’s a winner every time. So it’s inexpensive and fun,” she said.
Hoyt said that R&R Amusements has added food to its area this year, which will include walking tacos, caramel and candy apples, candy and popcorn.
Other tasty eats and treats include chuckwagon food from McGuire’s Chuckwagon, lunch options from Sandwiches and Things, and Preston Jett, who will be serving up street tacos, loaded nachos “and my personal favorite, fried bologna sandwiches,” Hoyt said. There will also be flavored chips, a vendor with 17 varieties of salsa, another vendor with natural dips and BBQ lunches served from Carolyn’s Razorback BBQ out of Yellville, Arkansas.
Around 90 vendors will be attending the event with a variety of items for sale.
Hoyt says the event is the perfect opportunity to find unique holiday gifts for friends and family members. Several booths will offer festive fall and Christmas decor.
“Our craft vendors really cover a range in what they offer. They’ll have everything from sewn items to metalworking to wooden items and more,” Hoyt told the Times. “In the third building, we have woodworking guys performing demonstrations of the work while they’re making things.”
An idea that’s morphed into a dream come true
Hoyt, who lives in a home on the property, said that the idea for Triple Treasures Marketplace came to her after she and some friends visited The Junk Ranch, an indoor and outdoor vintage event near Fayetteville, Arkansas.
“The excitement of people waiting to get in…cars were parked all the way up to the interstate. Every single vendor you met was so excited and engaged and happy you were there. It was just amazing,” Hoyt said. “That’s when I got the bug. That’s when I started thinking about the property we have and how we might do something similar here.”
The idea blossomed into Triple Treasures Marketplace, and Hoyt and her daughter kicked off with their first event in June 2019.
In the first year, Triple Treasures hosted two events, the Treasure Festival, held the second weekend in June and their Fall Festival on the first weekend in September. Then last year with the pandemic, Triple Treasures stood as one of the only festivals in the area that wasn’t canceled.
“We have so much space out here. Each building is 10,000 square feet. So we were able to space all the vendors 10 feet apart and comply with all the covid practices,” Hoyt said. “After the Fall Festival, we had a vendor ask if we could do another event [that year]. She said she usually goes to 14 or 15 shows, and I was only the third one that year that hadn’t been canceled. So Dana and I talked about it and decided we’d try it. We organized one in November - and it was fantastic!”
That gave birth to the Holiday Treasures Festival, which was so successful last year that the event is now added to the Triple Treasures yearly lineup.
Hoyt says they don’t know the event attendance since they don’t charge an entrance fee, but they do know that they have had 80 percent of their vendors return each year – and they continue to grow. The June 2021 Treasure Fest had 108 vendors present.
“So we take that as we’re doing something right,” she said. “We are personable with the vendors. We know without our vendors we’re dead in the water. It’s all about the vendors and will continue to be.”
Future plans and more information
Hoyt says the three large open-air buildings and an 8-acre property are also available for rent for family reunions, weddings, church revivals, business meetings “or anything else you might want a big space for.”
She also hopes to offer different events in the future. She and Dana have tossed around the idea of hosting a family movie night once a month, having a family-friendly haunted house or spook walk, a food truck festival and a music festival, among other ideas.
“We’ve just continued to grow, and I’ve loved doing it. There are so many friends and wonderful people I wouldn’t have met if it wasn’t for Triple Treasures,” she said. “There’s just no way our lives would have passed each other otherwise. It’s amazing. Now they’re friends. It’s a good business.”
For more information, visit Triple Treasures Marketplace on Facebook, call Hoyt at 417-712-0888 or email tripletreasuresmarketplace@gmail.com. Future prospective vendors can also get prices for booth rental and information on setting up at next year’s events.