Temple of commerce opens

Godly and gaudy offerings include Pope-on-a-slope posters, crosses that glow in the dark

By CHRISTINE BOYD, The Globe and Mail
Thursday, July 25, 2002

Vendor Sony Nseiri's fingers fly over the cash register as he punches in purchases for World Youth Day participants, an arm's reach from three slices of pizza that sit congealing on a low stool.

"They've been there for hours," said Mr. Nseiri, who travelled to Toronto from Israel to sell goods at the Roman Catholic festival. "It has been so busy, we haven't even had time to unpack all our bowls."

Christ may have cleared the merchants from the temple, but business is booming at Exhibition Place. Many of the 90 licensed vendors -- who paid $3,000 to $12,000 for each nine-square-metre booth -- hawk a dazzling array of products from the godly to the gaudy and from the sacred to the profane. Some items are just plain weird, although there's no sign of Pope-on-a-rope soap.

"No one approached us with that . . . but it would have been rejected pretty quickly," said Dan Fahey, co-owner of Maraca, a Mississauga-based marketing company that licensed the vendors and handled official merchandise for the event. Maraca and the World Youth Day organizers hope to harvest about $2.7-million from vendor licences and sales of official merchandise. Proceeds will be used to offset the cost of the event.

But Pope-on-a-slope posters, featuring the pontiff skiing, are available, as are glow-in-the-dark crosses, Scripture Bear plush toys, pop-up picture books, refrigerator magnets depicting saints and, in almost every stall, rosaries.

Some items on sale bear no apparent connection to Catholicism: Harley-Davidson T-shirts, Toronto Blue Jays visors, silver Canada spoons. Others try to tap the edgy, youthful vibe that has given these festivals the nickname Popestock. These include stick-on cross tattoos, CDs by Christian rock groups and woven bracelets with the letters W.W.J.D. -- short for What Would Jesus Do?

T-shirts are among the fastest sellers -- especially the ones that express attitude. Vendor Mark Nelson said that on Tuesday, the first day of the six-day event, pilgrims snapped up 700 white T-shirts featuring John Paul in his prepapal days, striding vigorously in a black cassock, wind jacket, black beret and dark sunglasses.

But flags appear to be the biggest sellers of all. Pilgrims wave them in the air, tuck small ones in their hair, flourish them as capes.

"You've got to show your colours," said Montreal entrepreneur Max (Medina) Bitton, who sold more than 100 flags his first day. The vendor doesn't expect to make as much money from World Youth Day's 200,000 registered participants as he does at auto-racing events such as the Toronto Molson Indy and the Formula One Grand Prix of Canada in Montreal.

But, as he points out, prophets matter more than profits at World Youth Day.

"Here, they don't have the money," Mr. Bitton said. "That's not what it's all about."