What is a wellness festival?

Put simply

What is a wellness festival? Here's how we'd put it to a friend: it's a day out where the main event is you. Instead of watching a band on a stage, you take a class. Then another one. In between you cool down, eat something, wander past local vendors and end up chatting with someone you met in the stretch line.

That's the whole idea. Nobody comes to be impressed. They come to move, and to be around other people who wanted the same thing that day.

What a day at ours looks like

At a STRENGTH IN THE CITY festival, you'll find fitness and wellness classes taught by instructors from that city, recovery experiences right next to them, a vendor village with anywhere from 30 to 100 local brands, and a community run and walk. If you get there early, you might be one of the first 100 people, who get a welcome bag. There's also BINGO with more than 50 prizes.

Classes are on a schedule, so you pick what you want to try. A Pilates mat class at eleven, a dance workout after lunch, nothing at all at two because you found a good spot on the grass. We have a longer page on what happens at our wellness festival if you want the full run of the day.

Who goes

Gym regulars, sure. But you might just as easily end up on the mat next to a friend group that wanted a better plan than brunch, a parent with a toddler on their shoulders, someone easing back in after a long break, or an instructor quietly taking notes on how other teachers run a room. If you're a beginner you will not be the only one, and the teacher will show you a way through every move.

Isn't that just a fitness expo?

We get why it sounds like one. The difference is what your feet are doing. At an expo you shuffle from booth to booth and get pitched. At a festival you're mostly moving, and the vendors fill the gaps instead of being the reason you came. We wrote a separate guide on wellness expo vs festival vs fair that goes into it.

How big are they?

Some wellness festivals are a few dozen people in a park. Some fill a stadium lot. Ours land in the middle, with 500 to 1,000 people at each stop and more than 100 local instructors, leaders and community partners involved per city. We like that size. It's loud enough to feel like a party and small enough that you bump into the same people twice.

Ticket prices

There's no standard price. A few community festivals are free, most sell a day ticket, and some sell a VIP ticket with extras on top. We price ours per city, and you'll find the number on that city's Speakeasy listing.

Picking a good one

Our own test is pretty simple. Are the teachers named, and are they from that city? If an organizer can't tell you who's teaching, that says a lot. Would you take those classes on a normal Tuesday? If not, skip it. Then the dull stuff that matters on the day: is there a rain plan, and is there a way to ask for an adjustment if you need one?

One more tip. If there's no recovery on the schedule at all, it isn't really a wellness festival. It's a very long workout.

Before you go

Wear layers and shoes you trust, roll up a mat, fill a water bottle and get there early. Our list of what to bring to a wellness festival covers the rest.

Find one

STRENGTH IN THE CITY has held festivals in 14 cities. The next ones are on our events calendar.

Questions people ask