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Meet Lacey Conine of Hype Priestess and Witch Walk in Santa Ana

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Lacey Conine.

Lacey, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My name is Lacey AKA Hype Priestess, and I am self-identified mixed-race Witch, Entrepreneur, Reiki Master/Teacher, Healer, Tarot Reader, Business/Life coach, specializing in ethical witchy-spiritual businesses, and I Co-Host The Brew Witchcast, and – oh yeah! – I’m the creatrix behind Witch Walk (DTSA).

I started Witch Walk in June of 2019, and it was shocking to me how quickly my vision not only became a reality, having only thought of the idea about a month prior but how fast it grew and how meaningful it was to the community.

One day I was walking with a fellow witch and my now podcast Co-Host Jenn of Swords at a little weekly market in Orange County and she suggested I sell my crystals and do tarot readings there. I had recently quit my career of 15 years to become a professional Witch and Healer, and I thought about all the vending gigs I’d had done over the past three years – they were nice at the time, but not always successful or fun! I thought to myself “why would I want to sell at something like this? The guests who come to a place like this don’t get it!” And so that’s when I thought of Witch Walk; a market exclusively for witches, by witches. That was about March or April of 2019.

A month later, after asking a few initial cities with no response (which I thought might be the case, considering the word “witch” was in the title), I was sitting down with someone who works on city events for the city of Santa Ana. Now, I had prepared a full pitch; but she had different ideas. She sat me down with a hand-drawn map of the city and said “Okay, here’s where you can have your event.” And I just said “….What?” And she said, “Yeah! I already got approval, pulled the permits, and got the police department to sign off on it.” I was just in shock, like…. you’re really going to let a huge community of Witches come to this city, just like that?! I was pretty familiar with Santa Ana having worked out of my office there for eight months, and my boyfriend had an office for his clothing company in the same building for three years – but I don’t think I quite realized how impactful this city would become in my life, and how wonderfully accepting they were. There’s a lot of Brujas in that city! And even more who come from far and wide to the beautiful hidden treasure of OC, Santa Ana.

The first Witch Walk was June 15, 2019, and it’s in a pretty prominent promenade in Downtown Santa Ana (DTSA). There were regular restaurants and businesses doing their day to day – and then all these Witches show up at 4pm and start setting up – and the on-lookers are C U R I O U S!

We had been approached by this divine coven from LA called Coven of Ashes (COA), and they reached out having heard of the event through the grapevine and asked if they could perform. They’re serious witches and do serious performance art and witchcraft on stage which includes body modification (piercing/suspension), and uses things like human blood. I thought “Well, fuck it – if the city is letting me have this event, I may as well ask for forgiveness instead of permission and go all out.” And just said to COA “YES!” I asked them to please modify and be tactful and respect laws against using blood in public, and of course they obliged, as all their performances are sanitary and tactful! Their performance leads to what is now called our Opening Ceremony which we hold at EVERY Witch Walk, where someone from the community will perform a spell, ritual, healing, meditation, etc. to open our event.

They performed a BEAUTIFUL ceremony calling in the elements, and it was eye-catching, to say the least. There were probably 50 people in the crowd looking, witnessing, intentionally there to catch the performance – but the crowd of folks who were just passers-by attending the local restaurants and businesses were ALSO very intrigued. I was a little nervous of what “common” folks or “muggles,” as non-magickal people are sometimes referred to, cheekily, would think of this performance, and wondered if they would start protesting or saying mean things. But it was QUITE the opposite; I’d say 90% of patrons who didn’t KNOW about Witch Walk came by to the COA booth and asked questions. What I found out after the event was that most guests came in asking questions and being fully OPEN. To this day, one of the best parts about Witch Walk is that guests ask polite questions, and vendors offer realistic and knowledgeable responses.

The first Witch Walk had 25 vendors, including myself at my booth “Hype Priestess.” Today, we have had multiple Witch Walks with over 60 vendors, and just before quarantine hit, we had 3 locations that would hold up to 130 vendors!

The most prominent thing I think I’m proud of is how EVERY event I’ve been told how wonderful the vendors are and how included ANY WALK OF LIFE feels at the event. We are so proud to feature Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, Womxn/Femmes, LGBTQIA, Immigrants, Financially disenfranchised folks, fat bodies, all ages, disabled bodies, folks with mental illness, and other groups that would generally be considered marginalized.

We do have a thorough application process, and I personally vet every single applicant with a crew of folks who are all from the aforementioned categories. If I ever get stuck on something, for example if I’m not particularly familiar with a craft/tradition or if it’s an open practice or could be appropriative or harmful in nature, I have a slew of Witches behind me that will help me determine next steps. It’s highly unlikely for someone not to be accepted. Really the only reasons would be you’re not selling items that are specific to witchcraft, or you are not a witch and ALSO your products aren’t made for witches (IE: you wouldn’t really see a someone who doesn’t identify as witch selling clothing, bath-bombs, makeup, household items, etc. that has nothing to do with our industry, aesthetic, and beliefs. – We do sell those kinds of items, but all the vendors consider themselves to be witches, so we will prioritize those applicants and their businesses.) BUT, you don’t HAVE to be a witch to vend! We have several people who consider themselves healers, spiritualists, occultists, artists, creators, etc.! If your work represents our lifestyle, you have a place with us!

Ultimately, we ask our vendors to fully vet themselves through an extremely careful cultural lens, and if they feel their goods and services aren’t harmful, then they can come – but they have to be prepared to have open discussions with the community if someone else has a different opinion of their offerings.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s definitely grown quite fast and been extremely organic, gaining lots of media attention along the way. Within the first three months, I or the event was featured in every local paper and magazine around! It was a head-rush! But once we really started to see the cultural impact it started making in our area and obviously bringing in a LOT of opinions from a lot of diverse groups of people, it started to get a little shaky – is this going to be a big political statement where it’s constantly ABOUT the politics, or is this going to be an event that stands alone for what it is – We’re not Diverse and Inclusive because we have to be, or because we try to be – we simply ARE because that is what our community is! I chose to let the culture speak for itself, and let each individual vendor have their own platforms to stand on. 99% of these vendors TRULY care about change, and benefiting the community at large, and breaking all sorts of binaries, boundaries and creating true intersectionality.

I had a big concern last year, pretty early on, declining some folks application to vend who were clearly NOT apart of our community, didn’t give a shit about the benefit of the community as a whole, and were really harmful in their approach to Witchcraft and what we would call “privilege.” We had some of our most dedicated vendors tell us if these people came to our event, they would never come to it again. And that hurt me – because I knew in some way, I was going to have to disappoint someone by telling them no, or going to be letting someone down.

It was pretty apparent I couldn’t let someone who wasn’t apart of our direct community who, unintentionally or not, was hurting/silencing marginalized groups come in and displace folks who had been apart of the event from the start. So boldly, I had to tell them no, even though they felt entitled to our event platform as a marketing opportunity for themselves, and felt they were a prominent part of our community. It was extremely evident that they weren’t, however, when they reached out to the city and tried to get Witch Walk shut down or in trouble because they were told no – If you’re willing to risk an entire community who benefits from an event just because YOU can’t be apart of it, are you really wanting to be apart of something bigger, or are you wanting to use our platform for your own benefit?

I had a lot of pressure from witches that I respected and external sources telling me “Oh, this brand needs to change their name” or “they can’t sell these items” or “You really need to talk to them about how they’re doing XYZ,” and then when I’d approach the vendors, folks from the communities these people were supposedly imposing on were like “That’s not your job, you can’t tell these people what offends US.” And I was just like – “DAMN! You’re RIGHT!” I thought to myself “I can’t win here, at some point, I need to bow out of this hardcore system of “vetting” people myself, because it’s emotionally and mentally destroying me, and this platform won’t exist if I can’t operate it.”

This was a huge learning opportunity for me and I learned about boundaries and what it really looks like to have to tell someone no, and did I even want to be the deciding factor in that kind of decision ever again? It put a lot of stress on me personally, to the point where I didn’t know if I wanted to do the event any longer because of the massive amounts of physical stress and anxiety it was putting on my body and mental health – but again, people were relying on this event to pay rent, make long-term and new customers, have social interactions, friends-night-out’s, etc. so I felt I owed it to those folks who “get it” to keep going!

This was bigger than me, and I knew I had to protect it by making some changes about how we went about “verifying” vendors. Which, again, is why we truly deeply ASK our vendors to VET THEMSELVES; if there’s concern from the community, they know that we openly encourage folks to have civil conversations about their offerings and practice.

It seems the spiritual community has become less about policing and calling out (which are literally patriarchal colonial mindsets – why would we want to be apart of something we’re trying to destroy?!) and more about learning, educating, and understanding that all groups, whether marginalized or not, cannot be defined by “blanket statements” and assumptions. We must be open to listening, hearing, and learning to ALL INDIVIDUALS. That is TRUE equality.

To redirect slightly, other challenges most businesses that excel quickly and exponentially have to deal with are things like funding, resources, needing volunteers, having haters, expansion and growing pains! We’ve dealt with all of that and more! Not to mention how running a public outdoor market place can occur WHEN YOU’RE IN QUARANTINE!

Orange County went into Stay at Home Mandates the night before our March Witch Walk event – so of course we had to cancel it. But that didn’t stop us! We switched to an online event, and in March and April, we saw SO MUCH SUCCESS from the event! Vendors were happy, making sales, getting digitally marketed by our platform, and our community/guests were having fun, winning prizes, and stimulating the economy by shopping small! Our online event is happening every month, on the third Saturday’s much like our in person event! It’s been so successful, we are hoping to add it to our regular list of events when we return back to in-person events!

Please tell us about Hype Priestess and Witch Walk.
I think people already know a lot about Hype Priestess, which is my Intuitive Life Coaching business where people can book 1:1 with me for life an business coaching. Witch Walk is another branch of my business, and I am just truly proud of how far it’s come in such a short time. I’ve had multiple people tell me this event has changed their lives – even people who don’t live in Orange County who get to be involved in what we call the “VVirtual Witch Walk” (the “VV” is for aesthetic purposes! HAH!) have reached out and said they can’t believe something like this exists, and they felt so included sitting on their Instagram account all night consuming our content and vendors!

I think I’m most proud of how Santa Ana is fairing in all of this. Folks from around the country are coming to stay in Santa Ana, and spend their money at local shops, hotels, restaurants, and of course, at Witch Walk! (Obviously, this was pre-quarantine.) We’ve had guests from Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Utah, Illinois, Nevada, Florida, and Hawaii! Not only guests, but we’ve had out-of-state vendors and performers too, hailing from Nevada, and Arizona, as well as not out of state, but coming from NorCal and CenCal! On top of that, all the local and communities far and wide we’ve been able to help with branding, marketing, giving our business to, as well as the wide range of AGES we’re able to serve at our event! We even have an eight years old tarot reader who vends with their parents!

I think Witch Walk has really become a place known for community, sharing, loving, healing, and respecting. I can’t even count how many times I’ve been told this is the one time of the month people go outside and be social, or that they have no friends or community, and they’ve come to Witch Walk and made friends, or have finally found a place to fit in! Not just from guests, but vendors too! My biggest accomplishment has been hearing when vendors make money or can pay their rent from the funds they make at Witch Walk. It just leads me back to why I created this whole thing – which was to give my personal witch-friends a platform to sell their goods/services on – but that expanded and blew up beyond what I could imagine.

I also have to admire the operations and logistics behind Witch Walk. It’s just a DAMN well run event and so organized – and that could not and would not be achieved without the only other one person that helps me run the event, Nichole from The Tech Refinery, who I have dubbed the Web Witch. When I met Nichole off Instagram, she offered to help build my website for me, which was March of 2019. Obviously, Witch Walk started a few months later, and she nearly begged to operate Witch Walk’s website. The processes on the website are phenomenal, from applications to locked/protected items that only approved vendors can purchase from. And we have so much more to offer, we’re just at a standstill right now!

We always joke that I’m “pregnant” with my ideas for Witch Walk, and Nichole is my doula, helping me bring my creation into the world in the most effective way. She does so much more than just backend and tech work though, as she’s one of my greatest friends, and some of the greatest developments of Witch Walk have been her ideas or collaborative efforts! We were truly both manifesting “community” at the same time together last year, unbeknownst to one another, and, well – I think we both got what we wanted!

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
As it pertains to Witchcraft – I think mine, and every other child’s favorite memory, would have to be making “potions” in my backyard. I grew up in Washington state and we had 2.5 acres, and my parents had seven different gardens. So I would go around the yard picking flowers, plants, grasses, nuts, herbs, and anything I could find, and “brew” it in water. I was a super outdoorsy kid growing up in the Pacific North West in the 90’s, before the internet and social media completely changed the way children experience childhood and “playtime.” So I was kind of always an out there kid, a little witchy. Ouija boards were also another fun memory, even though we should NOT have been playing with that thing.

My favorite non-witchy related childhood memory would be any time I got to travel to SoCal to go to Disneyland. I came when I was 5, 10, 15, and again when I was 16, 17, and 18! And then, finally, when I was 19, I moved to SoCal in 2006, and I’ve been an AP (annual passholder) ever since! I’m heartbroken with it being shut down now due to Covid19! I wish they would at least light some fireworks off to raise the spirits of the locals! (Hey Disney, if you see this – PLEASE!)

Pricing:

  • (Regular) Vendor booth prices range from $40-$150
  • Virtual “booth” prices range $15-$100
  • 1:1 Working with me $75 and up (Remote thru Covid)
  • Reiki Level 1 Monthly Classes $185 (one time certification – Remote thru Covid)

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
All Photos @TheVineWitch TheVineWitch.com Natalie Wright, Resident Witch Walk event photographer

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