By Samantha Cart
For centuries, talented writers have been capturing the imaginations of readers with their fictional worlds, diverse characters and elaborate stories. This is especially true when it comes to tales of magic and the witches and wizards who wield it. This love of all things magic has inspired everything from book clubs to sports clubs and cosplay to culture, and West Virginians are no exception. Across the Mountain State, festivals devoted to celebrating the magic of the wizarding world can be found for casual fans to the most devoted enthusiasts alike.
Fayetteville’s Wizard Weekend
Photo by Fayetteville Wizard Weekend.
In 2020, Fayetteville hosted its first-ever Wizard Weekend, which was met with great success.
“Fayetteville is a magical place, so it seemed fitting to have a Wizard Weekend to celebrate the magic of our town,” says Tabitha Stover, executive director of Visit Fayetteville WV. “We are the kind of town where everyone is a kid at heart, and we like to play hard. If an event has heart and is a little quirky, our community shows up and brings the Fayetteville magic.”
While the inaugural event saw only a handful of businesses decorating their shops for the weekend, participation has grown every year.
“The décor gets better every year, with more businesses going all out,” Stover says.
According to Stover, while the event pulls in a lot of locals and West Virginians from across the state, it also draws a surprising number of people from neighboring states looking for a magical weekend getaway.
Some of the highlights of Fayetteville’s Wizard Weekend include a quidditch tournament, costume contests, hands-on potions classes, themed painting classes and a house sorting ceremony.
“We have a volunteer who makes hundreds of handmade wands in the months leading up to this event, and she prepares elaborate costumes to wear. Faces light up when visitors pick out their wands and walk away with their spell casting sheets,” Stover says.
Stover credits the event’s success to the support of the business community. Along with interactive activities, restaurants offer wizard-themed food during the weekend.
“Cathedral Café serves butterbeer, and there are themed drinks at the Southside Junction Tap House,” she says. “Many of our shops sell wizard-themed merchandise, and some offer special activities. Many of the shop owners dress in character to add to the fun.”
Fayetteville’s 2023 Wizard Weekend has expanded even further into town with the Love Hope Center for the Arts offering a gallery on folk magic during the festival.
“I love witnessing all the little magic moments and seeing our community come together to make this happen,” Stover says. “It seems unreal to walk through town in January with snow on the ground and see hundreds of people of all ages fully decked out in costume with big smiles on their faces, enjoying every bit of it. I don’t think you could pull this off just anywhere. It’s amazing to witness all this magic right here in our town that is a magical place on its own.”
Above all, Stover enjoys introducing people to the Fayetteville area.
“I get to live in this magical place and know how special it is and how wonderful our people are—I have the privilege of seeing it daily,” she says. “When visitors discover the magic, they keep coming back.”
Charleston Wizarding Weekend
Photo by Corey Zinn.
After attending several wizarding events—including the one in Fayetteville—Candice Maxwell and Leah Rafferty knew the Capital City would be the perfect place to host this type of magical celebration.
A dedicated committee spent over a year planning the inaugural event, which took place in October of 2022.
“For our first year, we pulled off a lot,” says Maxwell, who headed up the committee. “Most of this was made possible by the Charleston Creativity Connections mini grant we received, but we also had a handful of fantastic sponsors.”
The festival included more than 20 artisan vendors at the Capitol Market, including a local face painter, Alto, and three free class tables for kids: a coloring table, potions/STEM table and herbology arts table.
“Another big part of our event was the scavenger hunt,” Maxwell says. “We paid local artist Denean Ayers to make little sculptures for attendees to find. Those that completed the scavenger hunt were entered into a cauldron, and we drew one to win a bag of local goodies and art supplies.”
While the event did receive some community support, Maxwell hopes to see participation grow in the years to come.
“The Capitol Market was a huge help in us pulling this off, and we also had themed treats and drinks and a few activities at local spots like Taylor Books, where we held story time and a free movie screening. We want to work closer with the businesses downtown this year.”
While details are tentative, the Charleston Wizarding Weekend committee plans to host the 2023 event on October 21-22, growing into a two-day event. Committee members have a lot of ideas for expanding the festival’s offerings.
“We already plan to expand on the artisan market and how many vendors we accept next year, but we also have ideas to possibly add a dance and/or feast,” Maxwell says.
To prepare for the event, guests can visit its website to learn more about The Vandalia School of the Arcane Arts—the committee’s fictitious wizarding school—and be sorted into one of four houses: Puddledwarf, Blackbriar, Staggenhart or Toddrick.
Maxwell is passionate about the event and its importance to the Charleston community.
“We are really trying to create an all-kinds-welcome event,” she says. “We need more all-ages friendly events, where adults and younger generations feel safe to be themselves. We also think creating spaces for art is really important. That is a large part of our grant. We didn’t charge our vendors a table fee. We created numerous art opportunities with two different contests, a slime activity and a clay/painting mandrake activity.”
Hot Cup
On October 17, 2011, Hot Cup, a coffee shop in Logan, WV, opened its doors as a bohemian location unlike anything else in the small town.
Hot Cup is known for its nerd cave and cupboard under the stairs reading room. Both spaces are filled with movie prop replicas, posters and memorabilia.
“While I was renovating this place, I discovered this hollow wall over the stairs,” Owner Michael Cline recalls. “It was a cupboard that someone had used as a storage unit when this was a drug store. I thought, ‘Let’s make a cupboard under the stairs using all this wizarding memorabilia.’”
Inside the cupboard, there is seating, plenty of books to read and a variety of wizarding world tokens, including a set of well-known glasses, an invisibility cloak and wands.
In the summer of 2022, a social media influencer from Florida visited Hot Cup, and her post went viral. Cline was suddenly host to hundreds of tourists.
“Over the summer, tourists from out of state would walk in with their kids wearing full robes and carrying wands. They came just to see the cupboard,” he says.
Another way in which Hot Cup honors the wizarding world is with its best-selling drink.
“Our number one selling drink in the house is, was and probably always will be the iced butterbeer macchiato,” Cline says.
Hot Cup also hosts live music, book signings, author meet and greets, writing workshops, standup comedy and poetry readings.
