All Tarot practitioners, all crystal mams, all spiritual and healing folk; this one’s for you as a personal newspaper notification to alert you on Galway’s upcoming Holistic Fair that will be visiting our beautiful city during the weekend of 15 and 16 April in Leisureland, Salthill.
The locals of the West are surely in for a treat during this two-day fair that will be filled with Tarot readers, Healers, Mediums and guest speakers. SIN interviewed Freddy Roberts who manages the event ‘Mind Body Experience.’
Q. For those who don’t have any knowledge of the Mind Body Experience Events, what does it entail?
For starters, there is free admission. We have seventy exhibitors and forty-eight hours of complimentary talks, workshops and classes. The event is comprised of four different elements all in one venue, the Mind Body Soul Expo, the Yoga and Meditation Festival, Live Well – Talks & Workshops and the Galway Psychic Fair. Our site depicts what we’ll have going on.
“The Mind Body Soul Expo: Bringing together exhibitors and practitioners from the world of holistic health & wellbeing. The event hosts over 20 holistic therapists from all modalities offering mini treatments, advice, and information. You will also find a fantastic array of exhibitors providing holistic health products & information, specialist books, crystals, handcrafted jewellery, angelic gifts, natural skincare, herbal remedies, oils and essences, and much more.
“The Yoga and Meditation Festival: Two days of Yoga, Mindfulness, and Meditation. The yoga zone hosts 16 hours of free yoga & meditation classes and many additional meditation sessions & mindfulness talks are held around the venue over the weekend. All classes, sessions & talks are open to everyone and are complimentary, no admission is charged.
“Live Well Talks & Workshops: 32 hours of free talks & workshops that will inspire, educate and entertain. The talks & workshops will be as diverse as the presenters but with an underlying focus on inspiring a healthier and happier you.
“Galway Psychic Fair: Set in its own separate dedicated area it’s a must for all those interested in the world of Psychic Readings, Mediumship, Angel and Tarot cards, Palmistry, and the Crystal ball. All of our readers have extensive training and many years of experience and they all deal with your information in strict confidence. All readings are private and are given on a one-on-one basis. We treat all speakers the same, although we have some very experienced & well know ones at some of our events, I feel everyone should be equal so they all get equal billing. The talks have a pretty broad range, but we always try to have some focused on mental health & mindfulness. At our larger venues, we also try to have a fun workshop so people can try new activities such as drawing classes or singing in a choir, etc. No pre-booking is needed, just come along on the day.”
Q. How long since it first started?
We started the Mind Body Experience events in 2019, but have been running holistic fairs since 2008.
Q. How are the team feeling about the upcoming fair? Are they looking forward to communicating with Galway people and making it an experience to remember? What do they most look forward to?
All is going well; we have run this event in Galway a number of times. I think the fact it’s free admission and all the talks, classes and workshops are free is great for the public. It opens it up to those curious and not just the folks that are already interested in the holistic world.
Q. Are sceptics usually a problem or do you get many people who vocally try to persuade people that the experience isn’t real etc?
No, not really. We had over 40,000 folks attend our events in 2019, without incident. (We were closed for two years due to Covid and are just getting back to normal this year). While we do have tarot and angel card readers at our events, we also have a huge number of holistic therapists, yoga teachers, life coaches, mindfulness and meditation teachers, nutrition & health experts, etc so it’s a pretty broad range.
Q. Do you hope to expand across more counties in the future rather than Galway, Dublin and Cork?
We run around 30 smaller one day holistic fairs nationwide each year in addition to the much larger Ming Body Experience Events in Dublin, Cork & Galway.
Roberts’ final statement beamed “We just enjoy bringing so many people together and hopefully giving folks an interesting day out.”
