One Of A Kind Show And Sale

First of all, leave the kids at home. The strollers are ridiculous, plus incredibly boring for kids. The aisles don’t accommodate with the amount of people. The organizers should invest in a secondary building, throw the kid crap and food in that one. The parking is a ‘crime’; $ 15 – 17. Overall a test in patience, lots of cool vendors, too bad it’s so challenging getting to them. LOSE THE STROLLERS! Kids free day!

TIP: Bring a water bottle and some snacks/​a sandwich ’cause you’ll need it!
This was my first year attending, so I cannot compare this year to previous years.
If I wrote this article within the first few minutes, I would’ve given it 5*s, but this «sale» ain’t cheap. Entrance alone is $ 14−15*, parking another $ 14, & this is only for the experience and food samples. HOWEVER, you can get a ticket to re-​enter the show, but if you drive, you’ll be paying for parking… again.
(Re-​entry is somewhat necessary because after a few hours, you’re #OOAK showed out! You no longer want to bite any brittles, taste any chutneys, or see any soap stands. You just wanna gtfo! I didn’t eat/​drink anything ’cause I wasn’t ok with paying $ 3 for a small (probably crappy!) coffee, $ 6 for a lemonade (do you know how many lemons you can buy with that $$$!!!), so for me, there isn’t too much to drink/​eat. There are food stands and substandard looking coffee carts, but again, they’re overpriced!)
There are soo many exhibitors that you reach a point where everything starts looking/​tasting the same and nothing stands out. So that’s when you either leave or take a break.
Obviously, they’ll be a bunch of booths that won’t suit your tastes. The good thing is that the exhibits are somewhat organised into Food, Baby Stuff, & the Arts stuff is nicely distributed so there aren’t a bunch of pottery booths right next to each other.
Overall, I’d say #OOAK is good if your intentions are to buy or have a leisurely day, but you will be paying for it!
* $ 8 tix can be purchased at DeSerres.

Be prepared to bring lots of money. Many vendors do not accept credit, cash is your preferred tender.
It’s not a bad place but I wouldn’t spend too much here. I come here for the food and even then you get suckered in because the free samples make you feel somewhat oblige to buy.
Not a bad idea but really really expensive!

I completely LOVE this art show and sale. I’m been coming to the Christmas (Dec) show for 5 – 6 years and always leave inspired, happy, tired and broke. I’m now smarter and start saving for my shopping spree earlier in the year. There are a few artists I visit year after year. I highly recommend this show for people who like to support local artisans and who want to wear original clothes and accessories. There is a Spring show around May and a Winter show (Nov-​Dec). Check out their site for details.

A really fantastic show!
If you enjoy unique, original crafts that’s the place to go.
Great clothes, ceramics, jewellery, everything :)!

If you’re becoming weary of endless aisles of the same Monster Dolls, wavy brown soaps, earth-​toned, layerable garments designed for white people with dreads, and lavender-​scented, natural beauty products, the Spring One Of A Kind Show just might surprise you because you might actually find a ton of really pretty necklaces, cute little terrariums, blown glass eyeballs, awesome hand-​painted reversible clutches, and some of it is really fucking expensive (like I am NOT paying $ 105 for a bedazzled Ouija board when I can just grab one at my local occult shop and bedazzle it myself, thank you very much), but to the delight of your wallet, you only end up picking up a $ 5 bottle of pear-​scented massage oil and scoring the very last table in the wine garden where you smugly sip some disgusting, lukewarm white wine because now there’s a huge line up of middle-​aged women trying to get into the hottest spot at the show, but you’re totally satisfied because wining and crafting is your absolute favourite thing to do, and then you discover the food section and basically die and go to chocolate and cheese sample heaven and, congratulations, you’re officially 30-​something and this is what your life has become.

This is the third OOAK Show that I’ve went to. I absolutely LOVE everything about shows like these, you get to see local flavour & talent, along with meeting all of these lovely creative people.
My only problem with the show would be the amount of merchandise catered to moms & stay-​at-​home wives. I am a total homebody, but I just can’t bring myself to enjoy rows upon rows of kids clothes and mom-​wear. I understand that that is where the market for these companies is, but it would be much more interesting to everybody if there was more diversity!
More food wouldn’t hurt either! ;)
That being said, this is a fantastic event to bring your significant other and enjoy a couple hours’ worth of browsing hand-​made and one of a kind items.

I love, love, love the OOAK. I was introduced to it by my highschool art teacher & I’ve loved it since then. How much it’s grown & how glitzy its become! But I love learning about different Canadian artisans & supporting them so OOAK is right up my alley! This year I got some lovely gifts for my loved ones & of course for myself! LOL.

This is my third year at the One of a Kind Show. The first year was fantastic, the second year was ok but this year I wasn’t feeling it. There are several reasons for my lack of enthusiasm.
Firstly — in order to find anything (unless you specifically know the name of the vendor) you have to walk through the entire show, there doesn’t seem to be any system of classification.
Secondly — the website doesn’t really give you a sense of what type of products are being offered. It would be great if you could go online, see examples of each of the vendors work so that when you go you know which vendors you want to see
Thirdly — if you remember a product from a previous year but not the vendors name good luck finding them! Again there is no good ‘search’ tool.
I think if there was a better directory that would make the show more enjoyable — you could still wander, but would be able to do so without worrying that you were going to miss the vendors you were interested in.
I also noticed that it seems to be the same vendors year after year and the products really don’t change this much.
All that being said it is still a fun day of shopping and I usually end up pickup up a few things. I particularly like the new and upcoming artisans section.

I’ve been attending the One of a Kind Christmas show for 3 years in a row now. While the selections and vendors remain abundant and friendly, I feel it has lost a bit of a touch this year.
This year I noticed instead of being a «one of a kind» show, it was more of a «15 of a kind» show. I saw many duplicates of similar items, such as paintings, photos, handbags, and probably the biggest culprit being clothing. In addition, the flavours section, which is usually the highlight of the show for most people, disappointed me somewhat. I attended this show and the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair last month, and I felt the winter fair had better food selections.
Nevertheless, we still managed to spend a total of 4.5 hours here and visited every single aisle. Similar to the past 2 years, I did purchase some gifts here that would be Christmas worthy. Guys, if you wanna impress your significant other or wife, check out the jewellery places throughout the show; they’re definitely worth looking upon.

Awesome show! So many finds for yourself or for gifts!
Not to mention the food! You can make a meal out of sampling here, and everything is gourmet. I bought some incredibly delicious pear flavoured balsamic vinegar that will be fantastic in salad dressings.
The show is huge so I would suggest taking a look through the map and vendor lists before you head off in a certain direction. I was there on a weekday evening and it was comfortably busy, not overly crowded.
Definitely recommend going — I will be back next year!

Ah-​mazing. This show is the best show around. Wonderful art, jewelry and clothes from one of a kind makers. I also picked up some amazing food stuffs like vegan garlic spread, citrus oil and the most amazing shortbread I’ve ever had in my life.
Hit up the Christmas or spring OAK show and you won’t be disappointed.

This is my review on the 2012 Christmas OOAK show. As my rating shows, «Meh. I’ve experienced better.» — better being the past summer show.
Everything at the Christmas show just seemed incredibly overpriced and everyone was selling similar items. All the dresses, jackets, leather goods, jewellery, screen prints, paper craft seemed like rehashed versions of everything else. Nothing overly unique. My friend and I managed to get through the whole show in around 2 hours — while the summer show, we were thoroughly enticed for an entire afternoon. I must note that the Christmas show is geared more for gift giving, so the items are a bit more… indulgent and kitchy (??? — not sure the best way to say «priced to impress» and something to give someone who has everything).
The shining point, like always, were the food aisles! There was a decent array of different food artisans. Cookies, jams, tapenades, spreads, caked, OH MY! My friend and I had a dinner’s worth of food just sampling the different vendors. Highlights were Mad Hatter Bakers (
) who make some of the best gingerbread I’ve had and Monkey Butter gourmet peanut butter (
or
) — both of which I made my only purchases of the day at.
I probably won’t go to the Christmas show again, but I can’t wait until the summer one!
** TIP — If you can make it after work on a weekday, try going to the show then. The site is so much quieter and less busy. You’ll actually be able to leisurely walk around and talk to the vendors

Lovely. It’s like Etsy, come face-​to-​face, interactive.
I spent hours here today. Clothes, jewelery, art, soaps, handmade edible treats, pottery, woodwork, fine arts,…
Every vendor at the show produces their own art, they must to have a booth there.
I wish I had more $$ to support these artisans, etc… So many pretty things, eye candy for sure.
I was able to find some classy gifts that will be fun to give, for the Holiday season.
Not only the vendors in good spirits, even fellow shoppers were friendly and helpful.
Free re-​entry. Admission is $ 14; $ 12 if you purchase online.
Everyone that I met was based in Canada.
~~~
*stroller-​friendly, there’s also a change room and feeding room for your convenience;
*free child care, for up to 1.5 hours, for certain age groups (starting at 2 years).
~~
Parking is yuck, at a $ 14 flat rate. Not to mention that it can be super packed during some times.

I am definitely a fan of this bi-​annual show. I typically go to the Christmas one b/​c I’m broke for the spring one. But obviously, that was not an impediment to attend the Spring one.
The Spring had less artisans than the Xmas one, as well as new ones. I am finding that most of my home decorations come from here. It is very convenient for me, even if it’s a credit card maximization occasion. Does not matter if I grab the artisans’ business cards, I will never make my way to some small town (given that I have no car). Plus, you get to see some truly amazing artistic endeavours from Québécois artists.
I always ignore the fashion and the food aisles (esp this one) b/​c I am not keen and it’s a stampede of opportunistic people looking for freebies, respectively.
The pottery & glass work amazes me and I would love to own even more pieces but I know it’s not functional anymore.
The art featured is beautiful, but I find you need to be in the mood to buy it. Otherwise, you won’t have an eye for it.
My favourites are slowly becoming the leather craftsmen and the artisans who make purses (there are cloth ones). I found an amazing leather carry-​on bag (or weekender bag) from a guy whose studio is in Toronto! And I bought a cute brick-​coloured leather purse.
As far as purses are concerned, there is a lot of selection. Personally, I detest tacky branded purses (or worse, fakes), so I find the purses sold here a refreshing alternative to complement your own style. If you are in the market for a clutch, wrist one for clubbing, cosmetic bag, work purse, tote bag, weekend purse, etc, this is the place to go.
Based on my expenditure, I recommend you budget at least $ 500 for this show. I spent more than that.

This year was my first show and I brought the BF here and surprisingly he wasn’t bored or complaining during the entire outing, so that tells me a few things — there is something here for everyone and for every budget.
I managed to pick up stuff for the women on my Christmas list this year, plus eyed some prospectives for the guys.
The most crowded areas are the food section, which I think is due to the sampling that are being offered.
I would probably recommend that you go earlier rather than later, since there are some artisans that are not local, so if they run out of stock — you might be out of luck.
Crowd wise — I thought it was going to be a logjam, but it wasn’t
My picks for Favourite booths —
Lilliput hats — I’ve known they’ve had a retail store around College and Spadina, but it’s hard for me to get to their store. Finally replaced my lost Enfield cap that I lost 5 years ago at an office Christmas party and my new one is identical to the one I lost. Plus found some other hats that I might purchase at a later date.
Tresnormal — for the BF, but they didn’t have the size I wanted; which is what I meant about going closer to the show start rather than the end — because they ran out of sizes in the design I wanted.

Visited the Christmas show on Friday November 25, 2011. It took us 2.5 hours to see the entire show. The admission cost to adults is $ 14.00. for one day.
Type Of Merchandise:
The majority of the shops were women’s clothing, the sorts of things you’d find at Winners. Lots of children’s shops. One entire aisle devoted to food, mostly jams and sauces and nuts, sort of like what you’d expect to see at outdoor fairs.
Originality of Shops & Merchandise:
Most of the shops had merchandise that was popular 5 or 10 years ago. There was very little innovative or new merchandise. There were some vendors that sold merchandise that was obviously not original or even made in Canada or not even remotely hand made.
Price of Merchandise:
Fair to overpriced. Most vendors were between 5 – 10 dollars too expensive.
Type of Shoppers:
Mostly female, lots of strollers and mostly out-​of-​towners, and lots of the blue rinse crowd.
Booth Rentals:
A vendor told me she paid $ 3500. for her small booth rental space only. It didn’t include her display stands and lighting which she estimated cost her another $ 1000.
Overall I think the show organizers are the ones making the money here. I got a free ticket to get in and would never pay the $ 14.00 they are asking. Overall I think the show is a bust.

Very cute, and worth going to once to see what the hype is about.
But BY GOD it is so so so expensive.
The fair was enormous and took hours to walk around, and I was tired by the end, but I felt I had to see it all since we had to pay to get in.
The food and drinks were ridiculously priced, as well.
Some really cute and creative stuff, definitely, but outside the fair, would sell for half the prices.
Again, cute, and worth seeing, but I won’t go again.

I was invited by new friends to check out the One-​of-​a-​Kind Craft show.
I’m not usually a huge fan of too many people checking out an exhibition of small stores since it’s usually over-​hyped and disappointing… but i have to say this show was very different.
The stores were unique (in a GOOD way) and there were lots of really fun, cute, ecletic, beautiful and tasty items… from modern contemporary and clean jewelry to yummy macarons and shortbread and pretty much everything under the sun. There were lots of cute baby and toddler clothes too.
The exhibit hall is huge but NOT centrally located and the streetcars decided NOT to work yesterday from Union Stn, so it was an ordeal to get there. They need better public transportation to that convention center.

One of a Kind Craft Show and Sale is overwhelming. A friend of mine gets her ticket stamped for re-​entry and goes all week. This is a great idea. One afternoon is not enough at the show, but was just about all my wallet could handle. The Show is expensive but for the most part worth the money that ends up flying out of your wallet. I like to walk around and say ‘I could make that’, but that isn’t the point is it — I haven’t made it and am not selling it — and I would never make it even if I can. I just need to buy the pretty things and stop deluding myself into some sort of craft room grandeur.
The holiday season Show is a great place to pick up unique presents at every price point.