The Finders Keepers brings a taste of Italy, new zine and 230+ makers to Melbourne
Melbourne’s Finders Keepers Design Market returns to the Royal Exhibition Building from 9–11 October 2026, bringing more than 230 independent designers, artists, makers and food producers together for a spring weekend of design, food and creative experimentation.
This time around, however, there is a little more than shopping on the menu.
The Melbourne market will introduce a Friday-night Italian long-table feast, launch a new Finders Keepers mini-magazine, Found, and host hands-on collage workshops alongside the huge line-up of independent makers.
The Finders Keepers describes itself as a platform for independent makers and conscious consumerism, and says the October market will feature close to 40 debut brands among its 230-plus exhibitors.
The Finders Keepers Melbourne Design Market
Pull up a chair at Nonna’s Table
One of the biggest additions is A Feast at Nonna’s Table, a communal pasta dinner taking place inside the market on the evening of Friday 9 October.
Created with Gianluca from Via Gianlu, the meal is inspired by the generosity and slightly chaotic pleasure of an Italian family table — big shared plates, conversation and plenty of food.
The menu starts with antipasto including cheeses, cured meats, olives and taralli before moving into three pasta dishes: rigatoni with spicy vodka sauce, linguine with limoncello sauce and handmade cavatelli with a red wine and Carolina Reaper bolognese. The sauces come from Melbourne-based Sorry Nonna.
The $70 ticket includes entry to the market and a copy of the new Found zine. Seating is limited, and the dinner runs from approximately 5.30pm to 7.30pm.
A Feast at Nonna’s Table — details and tickets
A new little magazine called Found
Finders Keepers is also using the Melbourne market to launch Found, its new mini-magazine for what it calls the “creatively curious”.
The publication is designed around slower-paced stories about design and creativity — an interesting physical counterpoint to the endless scroll that now dominates the way independent artists and makers are discovered online.
Copies will be available at the market, with visitors able to buy a combined market-and-zine ticket for $13 plus booking fee. The original event announcement describes Found as a magazine designed to be shared and kept.
It is a fitting addition for an organisation whose markets have spent 18 years providing emerging creative businesses with somewhere physical to meet their audience.
Scissors, paper, imagination
Visitors wanting to make something themselves rather than simply admire everybody else’s handiwork can head to a pop-up from Brunswick collage studio That Paper Joint.
Co-founder Maximillian Malone and the studio team will run guided workshops and casual collage sessions across all three days of the market.
That Paper Joint’s regular Brunswick studio is dedicated to analogue cut-and-paste art, with its Finders Keepers sessions priced from $35 to $75 depending on the workshop.
More than 230 independent makers
Around all of this sits the heart of Finders Keepers: stalls packed with art, ceramics, jewellery, fashion, homewares, food, stationery and the sort of small-batch objects that generally don’t survive a comparison with a mass-production catalogue.
Organisers say 230-plus independent designers and makers will appear at the Melbourne event, bringing one-offs, limited editions, new collections and products made specifically for the market.
The program also includes The Change Room, an area devoted to ethical fashion; The Sweet Spot, bringing food and coffee stallholders together; and a communal Mindfulness Mural created with Melbourne illustrator and designer Emma Winton.
The market will also feature Cooked Concepts through The Finders Keepers Indigenous Program and Tasmania-based Fluturi through its Regional Program.
A quieter way into the market
Accessibility has also been built into the weekend.
On Sunday 11 October from 9am to 10am, Finders Keepers will hold a low-sensory hour, with music switched off and lighting lowered before normal Sunday trading begins.
The Royal Exhibition Building areas being used by the market are wheelchair accessible, companions and carers receive complimentary entry with identification, and assistance animals are welcome.
The details
The Finders Keepers Melbourne Design Market
Friday 9 October: 4pm–9pm
Saturday 10 October: 10am–5pm
Sunday 11 October: 10am–5pm
Low-sensory hour: Sunday from 9am
Where: Royal Exhibition Building, Carlton Gardens, Narrm
General entry: $7 plus booking fee
Weekend pass: $10 plus booking fee
Children under 13: Free
Ticket + Found zine: $13 plus booking fee
Nonna’s Table: $70 plus booking fee
Collage workshops: from $35
The event information and pricing are confirmed on the official Finders Keepers website.
Melbourne market information and tickets
And you’ve actually been supplied with a useful official image library in the media release, including photographs of the collage workshops, a previous shared-table event, The Change Room and market stallholders.
