GoKawiilVendors at the Christmas Village and Made in Philadelphia markets in Center City will not be permitted to allow shoppers to step inside their booths this holiday season.
Instead, sales counters and other barriers will be added to most booths, making them inaccessible to shoppers and requiring sellers to help customers select merchandise, according to an email that the event organizer, German American Marketing, sent to vendors earlier this week. The change is necessary to ensure the monthlong holiday event at Dilworth and LOVE parks is compliant with the Americans with Disability Act.
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For shoppers to enter the booths, each booth would need an 8-foot-long ramp, Thomas Bauer, CEO of German American Marketing, wrote in the email, which was shared with PhillyVoice. That only would work for some of the wider booths, and the "only option left" is to add the sales counters, Bauer wrote.
"We tried all reasonable solutions to avoid this step and in having to put you and our staff through executing access support assistance," Bauer wrote. "But at the end of the day, we can't avoid it. Simply put, we have to make the booths inaccessible — as we have observed at other Holiday Markets in New York City and Denver."
A few booths along City Hall "might" be able to utilize the 8-foot-long ramps to allow shoppers inside, Bauer wrote.
Bauer told vendors that German American Marketing is "not thrilled" with the change, saying it spent 32 months working with legal experts, the city and disability rights advocates ahead of this decision. At the 2025 market, vendors and Christmas Village staff had temporary ramps that they could place out to accommodate shoppers who used wheelchairs or walkers.
"Well, it was a great approach, but a very small group of people do not like that they need assistance to enter booths which able bodied don't need to ask for," Bauer wrote.
Vendors pay $8,500 to $16,500 for their booths, according to a Reddit post about fees, and Bauer's email notes that small business owners likely will have to consider adding additional staffers or anticipate lower sales. But vendor contracts for this year's market already have been signed and many already have paid the fee for the year, vendors say.
In an Instagram video, Lindsay Gradel, who sells children's clothing through her business Sew Much Cooler, said that adding the counter changes the whole layout for vendors and likely will deter sales. Many sellers, she said, won't have the chance to back out and work at another Christmas market either, because applications for most markets have closed.
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