Three floors of taxidermy, antique medical tools, ouija boards and one-of-a-kind jewelry are set to take over the Globe Theatre in downtown Los Angeles on Oct. 4, when the Oddities Flea Market returns for its annual stop in the city. VIP doors open at 11 a.m., with general admission beginning at 1 p.m., and organizers expect somewhere between 60 and 70 vendors selling everything from rare vintage antiques to handmade art, according to seed facts from the event's coverage.
The market is the brainchild of Ryan Matthew Cohn and Regina Marie Cohn, who founded it in Brooklyn in 2017 and have since built it into a touring curiosity circuit. As reported by the Los Angeles Daily News, Ryan Matthew Cohn is a longtime collector of rare rocks, minerals, old dolls, medical ephemera and taxidermy, and he has said that before the internet, there was no real place for people interested in the same peculiar things to actually communicate. That idea, born from a niche obsession, is what pushed the couple to launch their first market at Brooklyn Bazaar, where multiple vendors sold clothing, baroque jewelry and taxidermy under one roof.
According to the market's official event page, this year's Los Angeles edition spans three curated floors of medical-history ephemera, anatomical curiosities, natural-history items, osteological specimens, taxidermy, home decor, jewelry and original art. The Globe Theatre sits at 740 S. Broadway, and the event offers multiple admission tiers.
A Touring Market With Local Roots
Nobody, including the founders, expected the first Oddities Flea Market to blow up the way it did. The debut event drew a line extending roughly six blocks down the street in Brooklyn, the Daily News reports, and it wasn't long before the couple brought the concept west, launching in Los Angeles in 2018. The market has been an annual fixture at the Globe Theatre except for the last two years, when the venue was being renovated, though older listings from The Infatuation and Atlas Obscura cite different October dates for the venue in years past, and it is not clear from those listings which editions they describe.
Another account gives a different measure of the Brooklyn debut crowd: the Los Angeles Downtown News reports lines stretching eight blocks. The market has since expanded to several locations, per the CT Examiner. The Daily News says it now hosts three markets a year across Los Angeles, New York and Connecticut.
How the Market Takes Shape
Vendor selection is a central part of the event's format. Cohn and his wife review applications and personally curate the vendors, the Daily News reports. In an interview with the Los Angeles Downtown News, the pair put it simply: “We hand-pick every vendor who's in there.” Social media also helps them find prospective vendors and assess their style and craftsmanship.
Regina Cohn has said younger people are increasingly drawn to supporting community, local and small businesses, according to the Daily News. That observation is about the market's audience; broader secondhand-shopping data offers a separate measure of younger consumers' interest in resale.
Tattoos, Tarot and a Ouija Board Historian
Beyond the vendor tables, this year's market layers in hands-on attractions. Devin Mena will offer exclusive flash tattoos found nowhere else, according to the event's official page, while The Siren's Call sets up for live tarot readings and Cosmic Eye offers high-definition iris photography using professional equipment and soft lighting. The Daily News separately reports Cosmic Eye also turns a person's iris into keychains and jewelry, and that the market broadly offers flash tattoos, piercings and other activations for attendees.
Rules and Trends Beyond the Market
The rules relevant to some of the market’s offerings are specific to the activity or item. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service guidance says a federal taxidermy permit is required to perform taxidermy services for someone else on migratory birds or their parts, nests or eggs; that guidance does not establish that any item or vendor at the market is in violation. For tattoos, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health guidance says each practitioner at a body art event must obtain a Temporary Body Art Booth Permit and work in a permitted temporary booth; the general requirement does not speak to this event’s compliance. A broader indicator of younger consumers’ resale habits is not evidence of demand for curiosity markets: EMARKETER, citing ThredUp’s 2025 Resale Report, says 68% of millennials and Gen Zers bought secondhand. That statistic describes secondhand shopping generally, not attendance or demand at oddities markets.
Collectors won't want to miss Brandon Hodge, who holds one of the biggest ouija board collections in the world and will hold book signings at the market for his release, Supernatural Machines: The History of Spirit Communication Devices, per the Daily News. Shoppers can also expect a limited merchandise collaboration featuring Danny Elfman, Alligator Jesus and the Oddities Flea Market, sold only in person and in limited quantities, according to the market's official event listing.
A Legacy Rooted in Reality TV and Wax Museums
Ryan Matthew Cohn's path to curating curiosities traces back to Oddities, the Discovery/Science Channel reality series that ran from 2010 to 2014 and followed the daily operations of Obscura Antiques & Oddities in New York City's East Village, the Daily News reports. That television exposure helped build the audience that now follows his ventures, including House of Wax, a Brooklyn bar the couple curated together in 2016 that houses a significant collection of anatomical wax models.
