A free festival built around tarot cards, crystals and reiki healing brings vendors to Webster Street, offering spellcraft supplies and ceremonial goods. WitchFest, hosted by the shop Feathered Outlaw, mixed live stage performances, seasonal mocktails, local food and live art with the kind of occult marketplace that used to be harder to find outside of San Francisco's older witch shops.
WitchFest and Its Vendor Lineup
A listing on planetzoop.com placed the event on October 24, from 2 to 7 p.m. at 1506 Webster St. The Alameda Post described it as the festival's eighth annual edition. Planetzoop.com advertised curated magickal vendors, while the Alameda Post described curated vendors alongside live panel discussions and performances.
Whichever day it landed on, the pitch was the same — free admission, with a $15 add-on for a limited-edition tote bag, according to planetzoop.com. The listing described a lineup built around live stage performances, a seasonal mocktail bar, live art, local eats, and tables devoted to tarot, astrology, spellcraft and ceremonial goods.
Feathered Outlaw's Decade in Alameda
Feathered Outlaw is a shop at 1506 Webster Street. Broke-Ass Stuart identifies Marie Ortega as its owner; the shop opened in 2016 selling crystals, books, tarot and oracle decks, herbs, incense, jewelry and self-care products. Beyond retail, the shop offers tarot readings, astrology consultations, reiki healing, psychic mediumship sessions, sound healing and intuitive guidance, the outlet reports.
WitchFest itself has grown steadily since its early years. Broke-Ass Stuart's coverage of the 2023 event — the festival's third annual edition at the time — described a crowd of hundreds gathering at Al Fresco Dining Park on Webster Street, with seven local Bay Area witch shops, more than 30 independent magickal vendors, and a range of holistic and mystical practitioners spread across a noon-to-8-p.m. schedule. That event was free and open to all ages, with VIP tickets also available, per SF Funcheap. Feathered Outlaw also runs a smaller monthly Magickal Market that typically draws 25 to 35 independent vendors, the same Broke-Ass Stuart piece notes.
A Tighter Market for Occult Retail Elsewhere in the Bay Area
Alameda's growing witch scene stands in contrast to pressures facing some older occult businesses across the bay. Scarlet Sage Herb Co. closed after rents in the Mission District became unaffordable and the shop relocated to 1903 Fillmore Street in San Francisco, according to The San Francisco Standard. Owner Laura Ash told the Standard that sales dropped by 60% after the move, a decline the shop never recovered from before it shut down.
The broader numbers suggest why interest in this kind of spiritual retail and practice persists even as individual shops struggle. Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults consider themselves at least somewhat spiritual, according to a Pew Research Center survey, with 32% describing themselves as very spiritual and 42% somewhat spiritual. The same research found 21% of U.S. adults identify as spiritual but not religious, while 53% say they are both spiritual and religious.
WitchFest combines free admission with readings, healing sessions and live entertainment at Feathered Outlaw, which opened in 2016.
