The Finders Keepers
We are community creators.
We are champions of creativity.
We are courageous creatives.
The Finders Keepers is where communities come together to shop, explore and discover the very best from designers, makers and entrepreneurs in our country.
The Finders Keepers is where communities come together to shop, explore and discover the very best from designers, makers and entrepreneurs in our country.
Founded in 2008 by pals Sarah Thornton and Brooke Johnston, The Finders Keepers grew from a humble side hustle to become Australia's most-loved design marketplace.
We host market events in Sydney & Melbourne each year and launched an Online Marketplace in 2019 as another platform for Australian makers and designers to share their wares. In 2022 & 2023, the team was proud to host their first Creative Business Summit events, mindfully made just for small creative businesses. Our commitment has and always will be to community, conscious shopping, mindful making and courage in creativity.
At the very heart of everything we do, we seek to connect, inspire and empower the creative community.
In early 2024, Sarah and Brooke handed over the reins of The Finders Keepers to Cedar Mill Markets, a new arm of the Cedar Mill Group, a specialist events and tourism organisation based in Newcastle.
Cedar Mill Group is very much driven by connecting communities and providing more opportunities and experiences for individuals and businesses through their events and tourism projects.
The Finders Keepers are proud to empower makers and creatives all over Australia to make a living doing what they love, supporting thousands of small, independent creative businesses in Australia each year.
Average spent by market-goers each year supporting independent creative businesses.
Small creative Australian businesses supported by us each year.
The Finders Keepers was founded in the summer of 2008 in Sydney, by young designers and friends, Brooke Johnston and Sarah Thornton. They both now live and work in the beautiful Northern Rivers of NSW.
The aim for Brooke and Sarah was simple: to create a marketplace that was a supportive environment for like-minded, independent designers to sell their work. Brooke and Sarah bucked the markets trend with a vision of an event that didn't exist at the time; somewhere they wanted to shop, which also happened to combine everything they loved under one roof.
The Finders Keepers continued to evolve and innovate, expanding to multiple cities, Brisbane in 2009, and Melbourne in 2010. We've continued to grow out of smaller venues, and spread our wings from two-day to three-day market events. We introduced an Indigenous Program in 2018 to elevate First Nations designers and makers, launched a bespoke Online Marketplace e-commerce platform in 2019, survived a global pandemic and then went on to create a Summit in 2022 to empower small creative business owners.
Want more?
You can hear all about The Finders Keepers Founders Story on the One Wild Ride podcast here.
Follow The Finders Keepers' journey on Instagram and Facebook or sign up to our mailing list to see what's next, and you can meet our passionate team here!
The Finders Keepers acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of country across Australia, and their connections to community, land and sea. We pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today and everyday.
