Canterbury Park Craft Shows
The Arts & Crafts Affair and Junk Bonanza, fifteen minutes from Prior Lake: dates, hours, admission, parking, and where to eat before or after.
The schedule
Canterbury Park hosts the biggest craft and vintage shows in the south metro: the Spring and Autumn Festival, An Arts & Crafts Affair, with 500-plus artists and crafters from about 30 states, and Junk Bonanza, the three-day indoor vintage market. The pattern holds year to year: spring craft show mid-April, Junk Bonanza’s fall market in early or mid-September, the autumn craft show the second or third weekend of November, the holiday vintage market in early December.
The Arts & Crafts Affair
Huffman Productions has run the Arts & Crafts Affair tour for decades, and the Canterbury Park stops are consistently ranked among the top 100 shows in the country by Sunshine Artist magazine. Expect more than 500 booths of handmade work: fine art, home decor, furniture, jewelry, clothing, seasonal pieces, food items and gifts, with hourly gift-certificate drawings and food and drink inside.
The spring show skips Thursday. Thursday and Friday evenings and early Saturday are the thinnest crowds; Saturday midday is the crush.
Paid admission is good all weekend with the handstamp, and the organizer posts a $1-off coupon at hpifestivals.com.
Coupon and details →Junk Bonanza
Junk Bonanza is a different animal: 150-plus hand-picked vendors selling vintage, antique, repurposed and handmade goods for the house and garden, indoors for three days. Vendors restock at the end of each day, so there is fresh merchandise on the floor Friday and Saturday, not just Thursday.
$10 a day, kids under 12 free. The $20 Early Bird ticket opens the doors at 8 a.m. Thursday, two hours ahead of general admission, and includes Friday and Saturday.
Tickets →Online tickets are card; at the door it is cash or check only, with ATMs on site. Bring a cart or wagon if you are serious. The big pieces go first.
What you’ll find
Getting there and parking
County Road 83 north past Mystic Lake; the track is on the right just before Highway 169. The shows run inside Canterbury’s expo and event space, so follow the event signs from the main lots rather than heading for the grandstand.
Directions →Free in the Canterbury Park lots for all of these shows. On live-racing days in summer the lots get busier, but the craft shows land outside the racing season.
Eat before or after
There is food and drink inside both shows. For a real meal, Boardwalk Kitchen & Bar is inside Canterbury Park itself, Canterbury Commons is a short walk, and downtown Shakopee is ten minutes.
Right here Canterbury Park and Canterbury Commons
Downtown Shakopee First Avenue, about ten minutes
The full list is on Discover Shakopee.
Make a day of it
The same expo space hosts the Minnesota Sportsmen’s Show in January, the Shakopee Home Show in February and the GSTA Rod & Custom car show in April, and in racing season the infield does corgi races, beagle races and Taste of Canterbury. All of it is on the Canterbury Park venue page.
Coming up at Canterbury Park
Prior Lake Events lists each show as soon as the organizer confirms it. Show dates, vendor news and the rest of what is happening around Prior Lake go out in the newsletter, free, Mondays and Fridays, and 1,500+ neighbors already get it.
Photos: Junk Bonanza (junkbonanza.com) and Huffman Productions (hpifestivals.com); Canterbury Park photo CC BY via Wikimedia Commons; Mystic Lake photo CC BY-SA via Wikimedia Commons; amphitheater photo Discover Shakopee.