Beyond Booth Fees: Why We’re Building Community Infrastructure

Green Magick Apothecary began as a vendor booth.

Before Open Circle.
Before the Collective.
Before any of this.

Last year alone, we paid over $1,500 in vendor fees — not including the booth fees taken straight from our cash sales at farmers markets. And we’re a small operation.

The burden on vendors is real: booth fees, inventory, insurance, travel, time. You can have a “good” market day and still barely break even.

In our first year, we saw beautiful collaboration — and we also saw pay-to-play models disguised as community. We saw vendors taken advantage of. We saw access monetized. We saw competition encouraged where collaboration could have existed.

And vendors talk. Almost everyone has a story.

That’s when our mindset solidified:

Community over competition isn’t branding. It’s structure.

So we built three intentional arms.

1. Open Circle Events

Gather. Celebrate. Give Back.

Open Circle Events exists to create fair, vendor-first markets and festivals that prioritize transparency and accessibility.

But we don’t host generic markets.

Every Open Circle event is intentionally designed as a community experience with both a theme and a purpose. The theme creates identity and connection. The purpose creates impact.

That’s what makes our events different.

Each gathering highlights a local nonprofit or community initiative. At Frost & Flame, our vendors and attendees helped donate over 1,200 pounds of food to Solid Rock Community Food Center.

What began as a seasonal drive is now a year-round commitment through the Giving Flame donation box at Panther’s Gate — along with monthly volunteer work with our families. Because hunger doesn’t operate on a holiday schedule.

Events can be more than commerce.

They can be bridges between businesses and the communities that sustain them.

2. Small Biz Collective

Protect. Advocate. Share.

There is very little representation for vendors when something goes wrong.

When Williams Soul Food had their power receptacle stolen — and then stolen again, along with their tires slashed — they were stopped overnight. In a single day, the community mobilized and got them back up and running.

That wasn’t charity.
That was collective response.

The Small Biz Collective exists to build toward that kind of infrastructure — intentionally and consistently.

We are building a community of small businesses that:

• Share knowledge freely instead of selling access

• Protect one another when harmful patterns emerge

• Speak up for each other instead of staying silent

• Offer vendor-to-vendor support rooted in lived experience

• Push back against exploitative pay-to-play systems

We are not building a networking club.

We are building mutual backing.

Because small businesses shouldn’t have to navigate this alone.

3. The Open Circle Co-op (For Mystics, Witches, & Spiritual Misfits)

Reconnect. Ground. Belong.

Green Magick was born in the spiritual and witchy community — and we remain rooted there.

We also recognize how fragmented that space can be — hierarchy, performance, gatekeeping, and “light-only” spirituality that bypasses real life.

The Open Circle Co-op exists to offer something different.

It welcomes all paths — solitary or not — and people from every walk of life. No specific belief system is required. No aesthetic is required. No performance is required.

What is required is respect.

We protect our own.

We do not tolerate hate, bigotry, exclusion, or bullying of any kind. We believe all humans deserve safety, belonging, and protection in the spaces they enter.

The Co-op centers listening over teaching, reflection over performance, and integrity over hierarchy.

Belonging matters as much as belief.

Why All Three Matter

Events create visibility.
The Collective creates protection.
The Co-op creates depth.

Together, they form infrastructure.

Jon’s military service instilled the instinct to have each other’s backs — not as a slogan, but as a reflex. That ethic doesn’t disappear in civilian life. We are intentionally weaving it into vendor culture and community building.

And yes — we are still vendors.

In 2026, we already have more than 70 market dates scheduled. These three branches are not designed to pay us. Our primary income still comes from vending.

We are shoulder to shoulder with the same small businesses we advocate for — paying the same fees, carrying the same risks.

That’s exactly why this work matters.

Community over competition is not soft.

It is protective.
It is collaborative.
It is intentional.
And it is necessary.

And we’re just getting started.

🌿 Want to Get Involved?

If you’d like to be a vendor at an Open Circle event, apply here:
👉 https://tinyurl.com/opencircleapplication

Interested in building real vendor-to-vendor support?
Join the Small Biz Collective on Facebook.

Looking for grounded, inclusive spiritual community?
Join The Open Circle Co-op group. 

Community over competition starts with showing up.