Bloomington celebrates May Day with downtown festival (2024)

BLOOMINGTON— Area residents brought their witchiest selves to downtown Bloomington on Saturday for an artistic celebration of the changing seasons.

May Day Festival - A Beltane Celebration was hosted by Midnight's Shadow Spells & Brews, 402 1/2 N. Main St.,and The Painted Wraith Curiosity Shoppe, 106 W. Monroe St. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., visitors were treated to live music, food from the Uncle Tony's Food for the Soul and Health in and Hurrytrucks, various vendor booths offering tarot and palm readings, spell and ritual products, "witchy" art, crystals, holistic products and a Beltane Wish Ceremony.

"Beltane" refers to the pagan celebration of fire, fertility, and rebirth. It is a Celtic word meaning "the fires of Bel" coming from the Celtic sun God, Belenus.

"May Day for me is a powerful time in which we are granted the ability to assess and prepare," said Cameron Pierce, owner of Midnight's Shadow Spells & Brews. "May Day is a celebration of the coming of summer and spring; it is a turn of honoring what you have accumulated from the season before and preparing for the season to come."

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the business, which offers consultations related to spells and rituals, tarot readings and more.

Pierce believes this is the first May Day festival like this to take place in the downtown area. Around 1,300 patrons were expected to attend the event throughout the day.

"Cameron has been a shop friend and a personal friend for quite some time. And with him having his shop space downtown, we kind of have a lot of similar interests and a similar mindset on things," said The Painted Wraith owner Stephanie Stoltz. "So, he brought the idea to us about doing this event and we thought it would be a good way to marry both of our businesses together, and kind of bring the community together for something that was a little bit different than we have done before."

Stoltz owns the shop along with her husband, Mike. Stoltz said they also have other events planned for this year, including their street festival on Saturday, Aug. 10 to celebrate their third anniversary in business, but she said they hope to expand it from what it was last year.

They also plan to host their Krampus market again on Saturday, Dec. 14 at Reality on Monroe, 111 E. Monroe St., also in downtown Bloomington.

Bloomington attendee Angie Barry has lived here for about five years and is starting to consider herself more of a local.

"I heard about the event from a friend, she showed it to me on Facebook," Barry said. I'm a big fan of The Painted Wraith. I love everything gothic, witchy, and occult; (I'm) a real sucker for all of that."

Barry added that she is also glad that Bloomington continues to host events she can attend every few weeks such as the May Day Festival.

Michaela Zelie, of Bloomington, moved here last June and met Pierce, the event organizer, a couple of months ago.

"I visit Cameron a lot and this is totally my thing; I love this kind of thing," Zelie said. "I love Bloomington, downtown events. They do a really good job — better than other places I've lived. It's like a small-town feel in a bigger city."

Pierce and Stoltz agreed that if the May Day Festival event went well they would definitely bring it back next year, but for a first-time event they want to figure out what works and what doesn't, eventually making it a bigger event.

"May Day, it's just something that gets people thinking about coming downtown and checking out all the different shops downtown," Stoltz said. "Because we're all down here to work together ...it doesn't do us any good to work against each other or anything like that. So, if this gets new people downtown, that's definitely the goal."

The Midnight's Shadow Spells & Brews offers tarot as a walk-in service or appointment between noon and 4 p.m. Walk-in availability can change at any time. All other services are available by appointment only from 12 to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

The Painted Wraith Curiosity Shoppe is open for regular business hours from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.